Tues 3 Sept

To Busso, Bro.

We parked outside the Bunbury I-site and I knew we'd be away for at least an hour. I thought that, instead of putting the fridge onto gas, I'd leave it on house-battery as the 2 solar panels had sun directly above and we'd then be driving to recharge anyway.

A very nice lunch at Bunbury at a bar/café overlooking the harbour. A freighter heading out with a load of what we assumed was grain. I've only got the free version of Boatwatch, which just said that it was heading to Port Augusta.

Arrived at Busselton. When we hooked up we could get mains power to the microwave and fridge, but no lighting or water-pump. After checking all the fuses (yes, a 2018 model has blade fuses rather than circuit-breakers, must be cheaper) plus the battery-bank and mains circuit-breakers, I rang ABBA, the Silver Valley Agents in Perth. The nice young man that answered said that he hadn't worked there long, but he'd try to help.

His 1st suggestion was to try the right hand button on the solar controller - Yes - we're back in business. When I told him the lunchtime-stop story he said that, when the battery dropped below 11V the solar controller tripped to protect the house battery. Even though we had driven to re-charge it, and even connected to mains, it wouldn't re-set until we did it manually.

Good to know.

He was as tickled as I was that he'd been able to help so quickly.

The reviews are good for this Mandalay Resort Busselton. They wouldn't give us our Top (no 10) discount for Kelly's unit - only on our caravan site, as that was for the card-holder. When we said that the last couple of Top Parks that we had been to had given it to us, they said "sorry, but that's our policy". And they wouldn't let us in before 3pm. If their reviews hadn't been way better than others in the district we would have gone elsewhere, but they are pretty flash.

Wed 4 Sept

On the way to Margaret River we passed thru Cowaramup. Originally Kowellenup, "the place of good fishing." It is a dairy area and has a Bulls thing going on, except with cows.

In July 2014 Cowaramup, population 1131, got into the Guiness book of Records for having 1352 people in cow onesies. That surely do sound like a Fahey kind of village.

Harry had recommended Leeuwin Wines for their Arts series Shiraz. We had a tasting and then lunch, which was spectacular. A nice young waiter had a long spiel to give us about the dishes, with an unfortunate stutter. Their gallery was impressive, they've commissioned big name artists to do pieces which they then use for their wine labels.

They've also had many big names doing concerts there, including several symphony orchestras, Kiri te Kanawa twice, Sting, Diana Krall, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, K.D.Lang, Paul Kelly and heaps more. (the manager of JB Caravans Perth who sold us our Silver Valley Caravan (not JB) was also Paul Kelly, from Auckland). Not bad when you're 260kms from Perth - and Perth is in the middle of nowhere to start with.

The gardens were an artwork on their own.

We stopped in Margaret River township and a Chocolate Manufacturer and Vineyard on our way back to Busselton.