The 9th National Rally of Australia
December 28 1995, we arrived Melbourne on 8:00 AM. Rented our caravans at Maui Company, we went to campsite. This place was chosen to be the site of the ninth national rally of Australia, located at about driving three and half hours away from Melbourne; twenty minutes north of Horsham. We passed the two kilometer newly paved road and arrived at the rally site. We were warmly welcomed by the rally chairman Ñ Mr. Brian Kelleher. He himself helped us check in and led to our camping territory. On the way to our territory, many first comers welcomed us by waving their hands, greeting words, shaking hands or even a big hug. We were all deeply touched.
The main activity center was formed by two big tents, shaped as "V". Each tent can shade six hundred people. All together two thousand people joined this rally. As for foreign participants, New Zealand was the biggest group with twenty five members. The second biggest was our group with nine members. Brian told me that it took them seven years to prepare this rally. It did not surprise me at all. Because, without such long time preparation, everything won't be so nicely organized! I also learned that there were four rally federations in Australia. Every three years they will have a rally like this. In other words, it would be twelve years later for Brian's federation to have next chance to run a rally like this. No wonder that they all took it so seriously to prepare for it.
On 29th , we hosted a lunch party for the rally committee and chairman of each individual federation together with their families. We all had a good time. In the beginning of the party I gave a brief introduction of F.I.C.C. and F.C.C.C.(Federation Camping & Caravanning of Republic of China), also passed a copy of Asia-Pacific News No. 1 to Brian. It had been kindly posted to me by Mr. Kazuhiro Akase, F.I.C.C. Council Member, just before I left Taiwan. Brian also gave us thanks. And he wished a long life friendship between F.C.C.C. and his Federation.
December 30 early morning, a rally staff on his bicycle delivered us some copies of the daily rally newspaper. The newspaper spent its widest space to illustrate our lunch party of yesterday. Certainly we all felt a kind of being honored. 8:30 AM, we toured to the rally office and every individual campsite to say "Good bye", all talked to see each other three years later in the next rally site - Queensland. 9:30 AM, with a somewhat wet eyes, we waved farewell to Brian and many other fellow campers and whispered "So long, my friend!".
Yes, all good things must come to an end!
March 1997(Asia-Pacific News No.2)
