Awaking to another perfect day in paradise, nothing to do but sleep in and later do some more of this trip report - no wheels, waiting to hear from the mechanic :-( sniffle.

The plan for the group today was the Foster Beach 4WD trip of which the main group would have to come through Bremer Bay. We were hoping the guys would drop in to see us, maybe for morning tea. We had till 11:00am before the part needed to fix the 60' series arrived anyway, luckily we had my Sons 80' series Land Cruiser to get around town.

The lads did even better than just have morning tea with us, they all aborted the Fosters trip at the drivers meeting back at Quaalup with a unanimous decision to come back into Bremer and spend the day with the Frogmeisters at the beach out at Point Henry. Sofia, I and the boys felt really very humbled by this decision made by the group, to actually give a day up of 4WDing to spend the day with us and no matter how hard we tried to convince them to go 4WDing to Fosters, they all refused. It was a really nice gesture of which we will always be eternally grateful to all the members and visitors. Certainly blew away any blues we had, that's for sure.

Off to Blossoms Beach and all vehicles taking up quite a substantial area on the beach, once all vehicles were parked that is. Just as I was about to go for a swim I get a call from the RAC registered Mechanic 'Darren' whom informed me the mighty 60' had been put back together just before lunch time. Got hold of Jonsey with his 80' series and off we went to pick the old girl up. I cannot praise Darren enough for his professionalism in handling our unfortunate situation. His services at the Bremer Bay BP was absolutely faultless. He did everything possible to get us back on the road and we thank him so very much. It certainly does pay to be a member of RAC roadside assistance, they are simply fantastic.

We all ended up at Little Boat Harbour and had a very relaxing afternoon with great friends, really enjoyed everyone's company. Kids had a great time catching some sand whiting with Tazzy helping them out.

We all headed back to Quaalup Station, arriving with enough light to setup camp. Everyone saved a spot for us which was really fantastic.

Travelling to Quaalup was about 40km on gravel and it was a good chance to test out the new M/T Bridgestone Duellers, 33' x 12.5R, they didn't disappoint me. Simply brilliant in the gravel, really, really impressed with them... especially their cornering characteristics. Still coming to terms how good they really are.

Got the low down on the new owners of the Station Stay by the members and really didn't like what I was hearing. For starters, no bins were provided, no floodlight lighting in and around the park, lighting in the toilets and showers were down right dangerous as they were set to turn off after a few minutes, finding a towel, shampoo, soap in the dark was a joke! No above ground fires which were entirely legal for the season as we have enjoyed over the last decade, just no ground fires allowed, no gensets... an extremely poor effort from our hosts indeed being totally inflexible to our needs, with a inflexible attitude to go with it. All we can say is bring back the O'Brian's... Gil and Dale who were the perfect hosts compared to these new owners. A consensus was reached by the members that after 10 years of coming to Quaalup 8 times, we would not stay here again, Quaalup Station stay is no longer a tradition for West Coast 4x4 between Christmas and New Year and that is a real shame.

Anyhow, not to worry as we were going to be out everyday enjoying the region and what it had to offer.

Steve and Michelle from Sprintex in their rather AWESOME supercharged Toyota Land Cruiser 80' series was in camp right next to us too.

We setup up camp and settled in for the evening, setting up lighting as there was none to speak of. The evenings were rather chilly and an above ground campfire would have been perfect, but no go due to unrealistic restrictions set down by the new owners.

Despite the poor effort of our hosts making us feel welcome, we still had a great evening together as a 4WD club.

Click on the images below for a larger more detailed view.