Day 47 Carnarvon

Strange how quickly we settle down with a situation that only 24 hours earlier, seemed unsettling and laced with danger. The wind again kicked up its heels during the night but every time the shaking of the van woke me, unlike the previous night, I just rolled over and settled back into whatever dream was consuming me at the time. The colder temperatures helped to keep us in bed for much longer in the morning and it wasn’t until after 7 that we began climbing out from under the doonas.
We took our time having breakfast and finally had the van packed up and ready to go by 9, at which time we discovered that somehow we had a flat battery. “No problem”, I said as I dragged out the U-beaut Battery Jump Starter that sadly, had let us down in Derby. Surely it wouldn’t let us down again. With a sheepish look on my face, I crept over to the serious off-road camper next door and asked Garry if he wouldn’t mind wheeling the Landcruiser around for a quick jump-start, and other than the time he took to explain the benefits of the dual batteries on The Cruizer, Garry was terrific about helping us out.
Only a couple of hours later and we found ourselves settling into the Wintersun Caravan Park at Carnarvon and it was here that we discovered our second problem for the day. Somehow, we’d driven out of The People’s Park at Coral Bay without securing The Dinter’s Level and we now faced the daunting task of securing the van with only the naked eye as a guide. We faced up to the challenge and I’m confident we’ll survive to see the dawn.
As we were cranking up the roof of the van, we had almost reached the final turn of the winder when our third problem of the day appeared, as we heard the terrifying sound of ripping canvas. Somehow the canvas near the door had become jammed under the slider of the front bed, and as the roof was being lifted, the tension became too much for the canvas to bear and extra ventilation was the unfortunate result. The ensuing moments of accusatory glances are hopefully the last for this epic adventure and once we’d completed the set-up, we discovered that the rip wasn’t as bad as was initially thought. A few well placed screws along with some magical, material tape solved all our problems and the afternoon progressed, without bloodshed.
Children have a happy knack of finding new friends in almost any environment and ours are no exception. Within 40 minutes of setting up the van, our boys had invited Nathan, the 4 year old from next door, over for a play. The Three Stooges were more than happy to share their transformers and dinosaurs with Nathan and his Hot Wheels for a fun hour or so, on the concrete slab, between the vans.
At about 5pm, we decided to head to the local protected waters for a chance at scaring another fish onto the BBQ. I’ve had a few comments through blog readers about appearing relatively tanned, but until this afternoon, I’d paid the feedback scant attention. As we drove through the outskirts of Carnarvon, we saw four teenage indigenous boys heading into the local park and when one of them called out “Hey Cuzzie”, Jacqui cracked up. I seem to be fitting in nicely.
Much to Zach’s enjoyment, our exploits at fishing delivered a small catfish that we threw back, and an even smaller Bream that we also threw back after Jacqui couldn’t even be bothered to photograph it. Still, our luck in he seafood area seems to be on the improve.
Cheers,
Jorg