I was woken, just after 7am, by a text from daughter, asking if we were dry? I replied NO!

Initially I was surprised that daughter in Bendigo might even think that we had rain issues. Then via an internet search, found out that there was a nasty low pressure system over the coast of southern Qld, which had dumped much rain on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, and was now moving south. We were on its edge.  There were flood warnings for the rivers on the NSW north coast. It looked very nasty on the weather radar – I rather almost thought I didn’t want to know this. Might have been better if the internet hadn’t had one of its infrequent bouts of working, this morning. This early awakening by daughter also indicated that her knowledge of NSW locations was rather lacking: she thought Lightning Ridge was a lot further east.

The forecast indicated that things “might” begin to improve here, from tomorrow.

This was one occasion when I was prepared to concede that having TV in the van did have some value! If we’d had TV here, with weather forecasts, we might have followed the herd and left here before the rain.

In the meantime, the road out of here was now closed. If it did dry out enough, we might try to leave here on Friday, when our second week was up.

Part of my rough trip plan had been to go and camp in the Mt Moffat section of the Carnarvon Gorge National Park. This was less accessible and thus less visited than the main section, which we had already visited back in 2002. However, from what I was now seeing, of road reports and closures, we would have to give Mt Moffat a miss.

Another day of sitting around inside the van, sewing reading, John gaming. I was able to send some emails while the internet was working.

It was days like these – mercifully rare – that led us to dream of maybe getting a bigger van. Maybe one with a couch? Our small dinette seats were not very comfortable for long hours of sitting, even though we had added extra foam padding and pillows.

Because the bed went east-west, only one person could sit on this at a time – and not with any back rest because of the angle of the roof.

Today, dreaming also included a van with an ensuite. There was a lot of very muddy ground between  us and the amenity block, not to mention muddy flooring right outside the van door. Cleaning up after this lot was not going to be fun.