Running On Empty

Dawn on Wednesday revealed that there were lots of other caravans and campers parked up at De Grey campsite last night and that we were parked up in a whole space of nothing much except dry cow pats.  Dawn also revealed that we had a problem with our caravan batteries and/or charger which were decharging (new Jenny word) like crazy even with nothing running.  We'd first suspected a problem last night when the batteries were depleted even though they'd been fully charged in Newman that morning and Larry spent a good couple of hours problem solving to try and work out what the issue was.  We packed up and drove to Pardoo Roadhouse hoping the batteries would start to charge but no such luck so Larry did some modifications to connections and we headed on to Sandfire Roadhouse.  Sat in a queue of caravans and campers for fuel and then treated ourselves to some hot chips and watched the silver-green butterflies flutter around the sprinklers.  Batteries still not doing what they should so we decided to just head on into Broome and go to an auto electrician.  We cheered ourselves up by listening to one of our talking books - Charlie Pickering's "Impractical Jokes" - very funny and would highly recommend for a road trip - all about the practical jokes his family and family friends played on each other over many years.

Stopped off at Roebuck Plains roadhouse to confirm our campsite booking, then into Broome bypassing all the scenic and touristy things and heading straight for the light industrial area and Fields Auto Electrics.  The caravan batteries were completely dead by now so the guy couldn't do any load testing on them so Larry had a fun time grovelling around in the mud disconnecting them so they can be charged overnight and tested tomorrow morning and we headed back to Roebuck Plains Roadhouse and campground and set up.  Well, that couldn't be all the drama for the day could it?!  Plugged the van into the power and realised nothing but the fridge was connecting and then realised that we probably needed a caravan battery to provide a 12V signal for  the 240V to work.  A few choice words were used but then Larry had the smart idea (so handy having an electrician on board) of using the battery in the car that runs the Waeco using the brand spanking new jumper leads to do the job so eventually we had lights and power.   To top it all off, while this was all happening it got dark and our big Coleman camping lamp (which had also been fully charged in Newman) went on the blink (literally).  By the time everything was sorted we were so tired and, quite frankly, pissed off, that we couldn't even contemplate the idea of preparing our own food and headed to the pub for a restorative beer and a hearty counter meal.  We followed it up with an icecream from the roadhouse before heading back to the van for some downtime before, once again, early to bed.