Muster Magic

Monday 4th September to Sunday 17th September 2023

We and the rest of the Bushtracker Owners Group committee arrived at the Muster site, Horrocks Beach, 3 days prior to the arrival of the hoards. That gave us plenty of time to set out the caravan sites on the oval, inspect all the available facilities, being a beautiful community centre and an old pavilion, both of which would hold activities every day over the course of the 10-day muster.

As muster coordinator, I didn’t have much free time to take photos of the festivities, though I did manage to snap off a few, and I borrowed some from friends.

We had 119 members in attendance, with 48 vans camped on the Horrocks Oval, 11 vans in the adjoining Horrocks Caravan Park, and a further 3 couples in cabins. Whilst tiring, the entire event was an absolute hoot. We had near perfect weather with the exception of 24 hours over which we had winds and rain lash the coast with gusts up to 100 kph. I announced at happy hour for 3 nights leading up to the severe weather event that it was coming, giving plenty of notice for everyone to pull in their awnings and annexes before they blew out to sea. The timing of the event coincided with our seafood lunch so most of us were securely holed up in the community centre enjoying an outstanding seafood meal.

Other fun stuff that happened over the muster included a wildflower tour, a farm tour, spit roast dinner, camp oven cook-off, trivia night, bingo night, big onsite breakfast and a themed (blue/gold/beach) fancy dress catered dinner. In addition there were workshops on maintenance, Starlink and 4WD recovery, a book chat, a presentation on Cyclone Seroja that impacted the region in April 2021, trips to the Northampton Machinery Museum and the Northampton Art and Crafts Gallery, plus happy hour around communal camp fires nearly every night. All interspersed with auctions and raffles (Carol was the raffle ticket seller and raised $2,000). We also held our AGM at which I was re-elected again as vice president. There were 8 nominations for the 8 committee positions, so no voting was required.

With the Muster behind us we can now enjoy a more relaxing time as we explore Western Australia’s southwest.

Horrocks is located below an escarpment with a steep slope leading down to the town. Expecting a long line of vans to appear at 9am, as is usual, we set up the meeting and sign-in location at the top of the esparpment. The most vans we had at any one time was 4, so all could have been done at the oval.
Everyone was easily positioned on their allocated sites.
46 vans occupying the Horrocks Oval (credit Stephen Ringe). The Community Centre is the large white roofed building.
Some the farm implements used on the nearby Wepowie farm that is owned by one of our couples in the club.

Historic farm implements at the Northampton Machinery Museum, including an Aussie made Chamberlain tractor (the orange one). Compare the Sunshine harvester to the big green and yellow John Deer combine harvester in the previous photos.
A few British items, a 1949 Austin 5t truck and a BMC tractor.

Our fun table at the seafood lunch (credit: Lesley McDonald)
Our table at the catered dinner; Carol and I pressing the boards (dancing in thongs is a bugger); Carol relaxing during some free time. (credit: Lesley McDonald)
Horrocks Beach and a fisherman a little south at the mouth of the Bowes River, both visited when we had some down time

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