This Adventurous Age

TUESDAY 10 AUGUST     MESA CAMP

This was our 13th wedding anniversary.

We stayed at camp.

Mesa Camp from the beach

It was windy again, but that had dropped by evening.

After lunch, we went for a  long walk, right along the beach, past Neds Camp area. The sand was a bit soft, even at low tide, for really easy walking, but it was pleasant exercise anyway.

Sand, sea and reef

John had been spending a lot of time playing computer games. He would run the generator, after tea, to keep the batteries powered up, to charge the laptop through the inverter. He would then turn the genset off at 8.50pm – just before curfew. He then had some playing time left before the laptop closed down due to low battery power.

Tonight, a vehicle with a rooftop tent arrived about 10pm, and set up at the entrance to the campground. Naughty! We were the only campers awake to see it. They would have had an interesting drive from wherever, dodging all the kangaroos on the roads.

SUNDAY 8 AUGUST     MESA CAMP

Another drive back into Exmouth.

We had to be at the Bowls Club by 10am to play Versatility Bowls: two games of mixed fours, interspersed with pairs games, so that everyone played a total of three games. We won the first Fours game. John and I won our pairs game. The two men who made up our four, lost their pairs game, then we were annihilated in the last Fours game. John was Skip in that last game, and we played on a different green.

It was a long day!

We got back to camp in the daylight, but still had to keep watch for the kangaroos that came out to graze in the late afternoon.

It had been extremely windy when we left the camp in the morning. That had come up during the night. It dropped later in the day, but by then a tent had been shredded in the wind, and the people had to leave.

Back in ’97, we’d made the decision to have an old fashioned  sail track awning, rather than a roll out one, so that we would feel more secure about going away from camp on windy days. It was more of a pain to put up and down, but days like this one made it worth while!

Old-fashioned awning

SATURDAY 7 AUGUST     MESA CAMP

It was a very pleasant day. There was almost no wind at all.

John fished. I walked and read.

The area under the van awning was quite stony and uneven. John decided to remedy that. He raked and scraped the stones to one side, then spread a bucket of sand,  from down by the little creek, over the smaller stones that were left. Then he rolled and smoothed the top, using his poly pipe fishing rod holder. The result was rather like cement, and fine underfoot after the shade cloth matting was put back over it. Quite ingenious.

Concreting a floor

I was reminded yesterday, as we were driving around the top of the Cape, to Exmouth, that it was there we picked up the phone call from son, back in October 2000, that signalled our long trip would be curtailed, and we would have to go home. The extreme disappointment I’d felt at that, was still strong. So it was not a place that held fond memories for me.

FRIDAY 6 AUGUST     MESA CAMP

We drove into Exmouth again, in the late morning. Bought lunch in there. John had a pasty and a sausage roll. I had a spinach and ricotta roll.

Refuelled – $1.24cpl.

John played Scroungers bowls at the local club. I walked around the shops, then went and watched the bowls. John got into the play off for runner up. He lost, but did not finish until 5.15pm.

We then rushed to the Library to try to access the internet. It did not work. Then we had to do a bit of shopping for perishable foods.

So, it was dark as we were driving back to camp. There were lots and lots of kangaroos out and about, so it was a slow and cautious drive – followed by quite a late tea.

The outlook from our camp