September 2007 saw the first annual Australian Caravan Club (ACC) Muster. The club is relatively new, about a year old now, but it is growing rapidly. The club was started by Gary Stratton and Grant Stable. They based the club on the highly successful UK organisation ‘The Caravan Club', which boasts 350,000 members at last count. The Caravan Club was founded in 1907 and has been growing strong ever since. In fact, it celebrated its centenary recently and 7500 of its members were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace!

Imagine that! I wonder if any RV clubs

in Australia will get to have a 100^th birthday bash at Kirribilli House? The Caravan Club aimed "to bring together those interested in van life as a pastime ... to improve and supply suitable vans and other appliances ...to develop the pastime by collecting, publishing and supplying to members, books and periodicals and lists of camp sites etc ... to arrange camping grounds". It is a mighty popular club, so if its principles work in the UK, why can't they work here in Oz?

The ACC aims to develop a large

membership as well. Currently, there are around 450 members. The group also plans to follow the example set by The

Caravan Club, and has created a constitution with some fantastic goals. The overall objective is to promote the use of mobile caravans and the caravanning lifestyle throughout Australia. Some of the ways the club hopes to achieve this is by striving to improve the conditions available for travelling caravan owners, representing caravan owners to government and statutory bodies in order to obtain better conditions for travelling caravanners by improving access to camping/stopover facilities, registration fees and any other conditions relating to caravan ownership, or any other matter the board feels is important to the members and providing general advice to members.

The club held its first muster (not rally or gathering - I was constantly reminded!) at Belongil Fields Caravan Park in Byron Bay, on the far NSW north coast. This required lots of room for all its members and their rigs, the marquee where they held lectures for the long weekend, and a nice big grassy patch for the all-important bowls competition. With a whopping 57 acres of land, Belongil Fields seemed just the spot for the ACC to kick off their inaugural muster.

When I arrived, the heat was on! The finals were being held of the bowls competition. A large crowd gathered to watch the teams battle it out for the championship. The game was played with bocce sets and it was exciting to see the silver balls thrown towards the jack in the hope of a win. There were lots of groans and laughs at close calls or near misses, and the occasional haywire shot. But it was all in good fun.

As daylight gave way to dusk, the winners were crowned. Gary Duncan, a recently retired policeman, freelance writer (he did a story for C&M in issue 101) and solo traveller was one half of the winning team. "I've never played before!" he exclaims. "Must be beginner's luck!" he adds with a laugh.

With bowls over, it was time for happy hour. Everyone was content to stay out on the bowls field with their drinks and nibblies.

This gave me a great opportunity to wander around and have a yarn to people.

There was only one family at the muster. They were cruising round in an old bus and the two girls (five years old and three years old) were loving it. The girls chatted away merrily to me, before heading off in another direction to talk to another club member. "It's brilliant for them, and us," their parents said. "It's like having 50 sets of grandparents!" It was interesting to see them interact with the older members, and with the innocence that only a child has, the eldest of the two girls shook her finger and told one of the grey nomads, "why don't you take a nap!".

While wandering around the gathering, I noticed something I hadn't seen at any other rally. There were many members in wheelchairs, with walking frames or walking sticks. This didn't deter them from joining in the fun. It was also nice to observe the tenderness that their respective partners paid to them while helping them around the expansive grounds.

It is always good to see new RV clubs popping up. Let's hope that the ACC follows in the footsteps of the UK club they were inspired by. And who knows, maybe in 99 years, they'll be kicking back on the lawn of Kirribilli enjoying happy hour with the PM!