Well, D day has come and gone and we are still at home. The camper is looking immaculate, if Geoff does say so himself and I agree. We tried really hard to be ready to go by Easter but I had to resign myself to the fact that it just wasn't going to happen. Murphy has stuck his nose in and delayed us again. I managed to finish up at both my jobs and get most of the house packed up during what has to be the wettest April we've had in yonks, complete with leaking roof (6 at last count, buckets everywhere). I also thought that this way might be better, we can go and try the camper and gear out over a long weekend, catch up with our friends, enjoy, relax and come back, refreshed, to continue packing and cleaning.
At least we got to try out the camper at Easter and iron out some of the wrinkles in our plans. It became clear before leaving home that we had way too much stuff and that would have to be addressed. We packed enough gear for the weekend and jammed everything in. The trailer was almost full and there was no way we were going to fit Erin's school work in, luckily it was school holidays and we didn't have to worry about that just yet. We also haven't put the roof rack on yet so that will resolve a few issues as well.
We spent four nights at Brooyar State Forest near Gympie with four other families. Most of the families were meeting each other for the first time so I was hoping they'd all get along well, and they did. We couldn't have asked for better weather, while it was bucketing down at home, the weather was great, not too hot, not raining. Highly recommend camping at Glastonbury Camp Ground, even fully booked over Easter there was no crowding like some places we've been to. There are no showers but plenty of sunny open places to heat up the solar shower as well as the creek to wade in. We had two big goannas come in check everything out, luckily we had a bin with a lid but they managed to find our fry pan that wasn't washed from the night before and next-door's bin bag was shredded.
Erin had her own tent next to ours and had some of the other girls bunking in with her for a slumber party. I think next time we'll move her tent further away with all the talking they do.
We came away with a few ideas to make things better and easier on us. The first idea out the window is the clothes tubs, Geoff likes them but I have found that it might be better to have one big tub with clothes that don't get used often, eg winter clothes and work clothes and that tub stays in the back of the trailer drawer unless needed and use canvas bags for our everyday clothes that can be squished into places to save space. That way, we don't have to lift out all of our clothes every time we set up, and if we are staying with friends/family, we can just grab our bags, less awkward, less hassle. You don't know these things until you try them out, do you?
Our last night at Brooyar/Glastonbury was beautiful, sitting around the camp fire, watching the stars, enjoying the peace and quiet. At 2am the heavens opened. By 9am we were packed up and soaked to the skin, luckily we had a set of clothes in the car to change into and one of our friends had left his tent up for us to get changed, he had also just brewed a pot of coffee. Life's hard, isn't it?
The rain stuck around long enough for us to enjoy our coffee and then let up long enough for us to help him pack up and we were on our way. Home.
Later on we learnt that Gympie had 109mm rain, we had about 160mm at home for that 24 hours.
As yet we don't have a new ETD, the beauty of not being on a schedule is we can take our time and go when we're ready, not because the calendar tells us it's time.
On a final note for this entry, I would like to say a huge thankyou to those families that joined us for Easter, I would go camping again with you all anytime, anywhere. You are all welcome to join us along the road for another campout if you get the time or inclination.
