THURSDAY 21 MAY     LORNE STATION

Today was the birthday of John’s elder daughter. The other day he had mailed her a really nice card bought from the John Murray Gallery, here in town.

John Murray’s art has a very distinctive style and themes. Australiana caricature, I guess, with very much of a local flavour. I had bought some postcards from there; loved one that was a sort of cartoon style, showing an airborne 4WD and caravan, on a rough road. Hard to describe but real fun.

The rain did ease off somewhat in the afternoon. It was still grey, cloudy, damp and the ground was still a muddy mess.

The road was open again, if not particularly advisable.

We set out to drive into town for supplies – because we would not be getting the van out of here any time soon. Discovered that Truck was bogged, right where it was parked! This was shaping up as the trip of new bogging experiences. The previously hard ground had just gone so soft with the rain, and Truck had sunk where it was standing. Much head scratching ensued.

D manoeuvred his car onto a small area of hard ground beyond the front of Truck and John hooked our winch cable around D’s towball and winched Truck forward and out of the bog – with everyone standing a very long distance away. Not recommended practice but it wasn’t a standard scenario either. Actually towing Truck out was not an option because D’s car was just a Holden Berlina and because there was just the one little patch of firm ground. John didn’t want to get him bogged too. That was today’s adventure – of the “you wouldn’t believe it” variety.

The track to town was very wet. A small creek had appeared at the corner with the main road. It was very slippery. We just stayed in the wheel ruts made by others because that limited the sideways slipping.

We bought the necessary items for John to have a session tomorrow of making pasties as he’d decided that would be a very desirable way to fill in time! Also bought some screws because he would need to do some roof fixing, as well.

I was quite relieved to get back to camp in one piece and thought they had been premature in opening the road. D had continued to go back and forth in his Berlina, though he had stopped using the short cut track to the highway.

This morning I’d discovered a small leak in the van roof, that was dripping onto the front of the stove. It must have only just started, maybe as the wind and rain swung around to a different direction. Another bane of the caravanner’s life – leaks! We suspected it was coming via a solar panel roof attachment. There had been occasional issues of that type ever since the original installation in 2002, by the incompetent clown whose misdeeds I have described in earlier posts.

We dropped one end of the poptop down to form a slope, and that stopped it – as well as the rain easing.

Through these wet days the only other tourist occupants of the camp ground had been D in a cabin, a family in an Expanda who had been here for six weeks, two Econovans that arrived not long before the rain, and a big Roadstar van, ditto. Just these few people, plus the assorted permanent dwellers, were sufficient to make the amenities floors a wet and muddy mess, despite the cleaner’s efforts.