MONDAY 25 JUNE     KUNUNURRA

The rain eased off during the morning. The sky was still that dense grey colour, and there were occasional showers. There were big pools of water on the ground in the caravan park – it was very slow to dry. I guessed it was all so saturated. That sensation of dampness in everything was back.

There had been two inches of rain overnight!

However, the forecast was that his weather would clear away through this week. I hoped!

The amenities block floors got really mucky as grass and leaves and mud were tracked in. The staff did their best to keep it clean, with repeated visits through the day – but it just could not be helped in these conditions.

There was talk that food drops were being organized for campers stranded on the Mitchell Plateau. Probably by helicopter rather than plane. Campers were stranded in the Bungles too. There would probably have been other pockets of campers having to stay put in places along the Gibb River Road, but at least the campgrounds there had, for the most part, stores nearby.

John went out with a purpose, and found a local firm that would sandblast and paint our roof rack, which was getting quite rusty where paint had peeled off. He reckoned the time here might as well be used productively, and he liked using businesses in such towns. At least he had help there to get the rack off the roof – it is a pig of a job when there is just the two of us!

I went to the Park office and through them booked an Ord River trip for Saturday, with Triple J. I was being optimistic that the weather would be fine by then. We would travel both ways from here to the Ord River Dam/Lake Argyle, by boat. Travellers most commonly did the boat trip one way, then a sunset cruise on Lake Argyle, travelling back in the dark by bus. But we had done the sunset cruise on a previous trip. I thought the river would look different coming back, anyway. M wanted to do the combined trip but could only get a place for Thursday next. She gambled that the weather would be on her side.

Whilst I was out and about in the Park, and having a bit of a walk around, Telstra phoned John, and managed to convince him to order a Next G phone – with a more costly plan, of course! He also changed over the computer internet card. I wished he would have left any changes to our current technological set up, until we were at home. I had some memories of several previous efforts to upgrade things, or get things working, whilst on the road. It was never as seamless as the sales people promised.

The new phone and computer card would be mailed here, he told me. Well, we had a week until we were due to leave here – what could possibly go wrong?