Thursday 8 July 2021 – The warmest pools this holiday
As we only had a short distance to do today, a sleep in was warranted, especially as we had stayed up watching the Tour and surfing the internet etc. We took full advantage of being in the caravan park and had a morning hot shower and then H&M walked up to our van and we had a big slap up breakfast including cinnamon flavoured pancakes (meh, probably wouldn’t buy again) and the left over chipolata sausages. We kept an eye on the time though and left the CP at 9.55am so we got our full $55 worth of CP time.
On the road and headed south and, once again, a steady stream of cars and caravans/camper trailers heading in the opposite direction. It was a fairly nondescript drive – a flat, straight road with low lying scrub either side. We had to stop a couple of times for road works so that dragged it out to a one and a half hour drive. Pulled into the Wooramel Station River Retreat and checked in and then found a nice spot with two bays next to each other under some shady trees and overlooking the wide stretch of sand that is the river. The Wooramel River is an upside down river running on the surface only 2-3 times a year for a couple of weeks at a time after good inland rains. There not having been any recently it is just sand at the moment.
We sat down and had sandwiches for lunch and enjoyed the birdlife in the big trees above us (although not so much when we realised it also meant some ‘fallout’ hitting the vans and cars!) There were quite a few skirmishes between the pink and grey cockatoos and some parrots that looked like 28’s but with yellow chests and a much brighter green plumage. Will have to Google them once we have better internet.
We went for a walk over to the ‘historic tip site’ which is basically just a whole lot of old machinery, cars, washing machines, beds etc all dumped artistically into piles with some made into little sculpture pieces. We then walked from there up to the river on the other side of the homestead and then walked back to camp down the river bed. Some of it was quite sandy and other bits quite hard as though the water is much closer to the surface. Even though the maximum is only 22 degrees today we were hot enough after our walk to bother changing into our bathers and heading up to the artesian baths for a soak. We found one that we only had to share with a couple of other people and had a lovely relax and soak for quite a while. This has been the only time in the last 7 weeks when we have swum in anything that doesn’t feel like iceblocks have recently been melted into it. On a scale of one to ten Emma Gorge being a one and Wooramel Artesian Baths being a 9. (To be a 10 would be as warm as the thermal baths in New Zealand).
It was a lovely soak and the cleanest my nails have been for ages after it but we all smelled strongly of magnesium and other minerals after it so it was back to the van for a hot shower and into some warm clothes. We set up the table and chairs next to our firepit and saved time by having cheese and crackers for afternoon tea/pre-dinner snacks. H&M had gone up to the station and bought a bag of firewood so, at the appropriate time Hendrik got a good fire going. Our final cook for the holiday was a marinated flat chicken roast and veggies and the last of the big potatoes par boiled, wrapped in foil and put in the coals.
The marine cooker proved itself again by heating up a Sara Lee blueberry Danish for dessert which we had with the last of the custard and cream. Our fridge and freezer supplies are now becoming quite sparse!
We burned all the firewood from the station as well as all the cardboard and last bits of firewood in the bottom of the bags as this is the last fire we will have this holiday also. So quite an evening of lasts and it is starting to sink in that the holiday is very nearly over.
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