Hot Showers Again

 

Wednesday 7 June 2023 – A chill out day

There’s nothing better when on a caravan holiday to wake up and know that you don’t have to pack up the van or rush off to a scheduled sight seeing destination.  Instead it was coffee in bed followed by a cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs.  We even had time to get creative and make yummy potato rostis.  One potato and onion (etc) made enough for 4 large ones so Shaun and Darryl scored one each as well.

Not as foggy this morning and not much shade around the campsite so Jenny found some shade around the far side of the van for reading and blogging whilst L crossed his fingers and set to with soldering iron to see if he could fix the hot water system.  As he is such a clever boy he managed it so we will have hot water again tonight (not that it seemed that important in the heat of the day!) Soldered and taped into place, we will hope that the capacitors last the journey back down the FSR and beyond.

Various jobs done the morning passed until we decided it was time to reward ourselves with a swim. By this time, Darryl and Shaun had returned from their firewood gathering exercise and Amanda and the kids had exhausted their diligence at art and wand making so we piled into cars and headed to the day use area at King Edward River. It was then a case of pool noodle heaven in the middle of the cold, refreshing river and it was so lovely we pretty much whiled away the afternoon there.  Once we got too cold and pruney Jen and Amanda went for a walk down to see the waterfall and it is amazing to see the beautifully smooth rocks washed to a gorgeous red colour.  We marvelled that there must be some seriously fast flowing water across the valley to make them so.  The falls were very picturesque and worth the effort of the walk – fast flowing enough that you can clearly hear it from our campsite at night.

We walked back just as the boys had emerged from the water but it took a bit more coercing to extract the kids from the water with only the threat of making them walk all the way back to the campsite working.  It was warm enough to want to stay in wet bathers and we set to laying a big fire so that on the stroke of 4pm we could set it alight and get it roaring for a big fire to make enough coals for our roast lamb meal.

A group effort had the Benders on roast lamb and cauliflower cheese duty, Shaun on green veg and gravy duty and the Adamsons on roast potato, carrot and chocolate pudding detail.  It all came together for a truly delicious dinner.  For our first attempt at a roast in the camp oven it wasn’t bad although possibly a little overdone for lamb.  Lessons learnt for next time.

We had met up a Queensland couple we had previously chatted to at Pigeon Hole lookout down at the waterhole and they came over and shared our campfire so a lovely party atmosphere.  They have left their van at Drysdale and are swagging it here, at Mitchell Falls Campground and at Honeymoon Bay so unlikely we will see them again after this.