Mon 25 Nov Cottesloe Beach for a sun, swim and then a drink looking out to sea - 5 ships waiting to load/unload.

Tues 26 Nov Only the caravan park pool today as we continue our cleaning and prepping of caravan and ute for storage.

I saw a kookaburra on my circuit this a.m. - it has been a while. They weren't native to W.A. and were only brought over from the Eastern States to somewhere here that had a snake problem. They supposedly weren't terribly effective on the snakes, but are pretty hard on other birds chicks.

Wed 27 Nov More vehicle cleaning, a good coat of Armourall on all plastics and rubbers, and polish on everything else, to try for every little bit of U.V protection. A bit of silicon spray on all the metal fittings.

We chose City Beach today. How long is it since you got sand in your eyes? My fault, I could see it being churned by the waves, but opened my eyes while ducking under them. It took until after dinner that evening at Clancy's Fish Pub with Trevor & Frances before it wore out. We then drove into town and did some of the Christmas lights trail.

A lovely warm evening to wander around downtown.

Thurs 28 Nov Cleaning and packing. It's lovely being under trees on hot days but that tree gum really builds up and sets hard on vehicles and awnings unless you keep up to it. A neighbour's suggestion was Isocol rubbing alcohol, from the medicines aisle at Woolworths Supermarket. It wasn't magic, but beat anything else that I'd tried.

Fri 29 Nov 15 weeks in the caravan - last caravan day for now.

We drove into Perth CBD early to pick up a rental car. Even all those beautiful motorways, trains and buses aren't enough during the commuter rush. Back in convoy to pick up the 'van and take it out to Mariginiup to store. Then to a motel for our last 2 nights before an early trip to the airport on Sunday.

Leaving

Besides the heater exhaust, we also left all underfloor taps and vents open but covered with 2 layers of Chux cloth cable-tied on. I put a bottle jack under both vehicles, but should have used an axle-stand for the caravan and timbers for the Ranger. I had a good stack of timbers but the caravan is a long way off the ground when the weight is off the springs. We'd put both vehicles on chocks too to spread the load on the tyres. The 'van got it's wheels covered and the Ranger got a full cover. The 'van's solar is on and we left a small solar panel to keep a maintenance charge on the Ranger.

The correct Ranger sequence is: central lock the doors, leaving the driver's open, then disconnect the battery and close the driver's door, locking with the key. (This was the one sequence that didn't cause the alarm to go off)

We put ant-poison around all the grounded parts and left the container for the owner to top up.