I have been scouting possible locations for our first Easter camp, and come up with one clear possibility so far.  There is great little spot about 8km out of Manjimup called Fonty’s Pool.  I visted it today and was pretty impressed with what I found.  You drive down into a valley through some orchards, a couple of truffle farms, nut farms and winery or two.  At the bottom of the valley you turn into Fonty’s.  It’s a sweet little caravan and campsite with a really large lagoon pool for swimming.

Here’s a picture I stole from their website:

As yet the camping area is still available.  So we have the opportunity to claim it for ourselves. As far as the camping facilities go there is a camping kitchen and fire area which is all in a open log cabin kind of thing.  There is a laundry, showers and toilets etc, all of which were spotlessly clean and modern when I was there today.

At the moment we can take out the whole camping area around the kitchen and fire place.  There are two powered sites and as many un-powered sites as we want.  The plan would be to take the two powered sites so we can put up some lights for the rest of the camp site and so people can charge their Garmins, phone etc.  Then people can take as many of the adjoining sites as we require.

Fonty’s is only 31km away from Pemberton.  This means that anyone who is planing on making the trip down for the Pemberton Classic, which is on the same weekend at the moment, can join us at the camp and use it as ‘base camp’ so to speak.  For those of us who arent planning on racing we can go along and watch on the day and join in the fun.

Manjimup is reasonably sized town.  There is a Subway, pubs, supermarkets etc.  So if you forget your butter you can stock up in town, or just pick up a Footlong.

The camp kitchen has cooking facilities and a large fridge so we don’t need to bring big eskies and cookers etc.

After lengthy discussions with people over the last couple of weeks we are no longer calling this a training camp.  It’s just the SPR Easter camp.  The reason for this is just because you can make it what you want.  If you want it to be a base camp for the Pemberton Classic – you can.  If you want to bring the family for Easter – awesome.  If you want to do 500km with a follow car – then we can do that too.

There is a 5 night minimum stay for the Easter weekend.  Thats Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday night.  I thought that might be a deal breaker, but really 5 nights is only $125 per site for the whole event.  So not a big deal if you have to miss a night or two.  There is also the possibility that you can share a site with someone.  Ie, you can have the site Thursday, Friday, Saturday then pack up and give it to someone coming for Sunday and Monday nights.  Also, I spoke to the owner today and if we do take the whole area we could work out a per head deal.  So anyway – 5 night minimum shouldnt be a deal breaker.

So some of the details:

Costs: Powered $35 per night, Un-powered $25 per night ($125 basically)

Where: Fonty’s Pool, Manjimup 3.5 hours south of Perth by car, or 40 minutes by helicopter.

Website: here

Map: here

Some other thoughts…

Need a tent? Rays Outdoor – Im gonna have to get one myself…

Food – you provide

Bikes – you bring everything you need. Spares etc

Support car – we share the work.  We will provide a flashing yellow light and a ‘Caution Cyclist’ sign.

Rides – will plan routes closer to the weekend – but expect around 100km per day and some hills!

Other accomodation – of course you can find accomodation elsewhere and join us for the rides and activities.  There are two 4 star cabins available still at Fonty’s for $250 per night for example.

WHAT WE NEED TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN…

Basically we need a minimum number of people to step up and say that “yes this is cool and we are doing it!’.  If enough people are keen then we basically start booking the camp site out.

At this stage though this is still an idea.  If anyone else can think of somwhere different to go etc then let us know.

So comments below – you keen? you up for the challenge? up for the fun?