SUNDAY 14 MARCH TATHRA
Woke to a lovely day – warm, blue skies.
After all the rain through the night, the owner of the big rig behind us was upset to find his very fancy roll-out awning all bowed down and rather bent, from the rain accumulating in it. I do not think they have been doing this caravanning thing for very long! He is not having much luck. We had slightly dropped the height of one of the corner poles holding up our awning, when we got back from the walk yesterday, so the rainwater all ran down to that corner and off. Somewhere along the way we learned that trick.
After breakfast, drove back out to Bournda National Park. It has been on my mind to go back and have a better look. We drove down the track, past the turn off to the campground, to the track end. Then we walked along the path from there to the beach, Bournda Headland and Island. Part of the walk was through lovely banksia scrub, where we saw lots of wattlebirds being active and noisy.
We spent some time on the beach at the headland, watching the water surge back and forth in the narrow channel race between the beach and the island. In the distance, could see the houses of Tura Beach, which is just to the north of Merimbula. Both to the north and south of Bournda Headland, then, are long stretches of a sandy beach, protected on the land side by the National Park.
We went back to the van for lunch, then drove round to the old jetty, for a look. There were a number of people fishing from it. A seal surfaced and stuck its head out of the water – guess it was begging for a fish meal? It did this several times, despite the evident schools of fish swimming all round it! Maybe it liked the concept of interaction with humans? Maybe it was just into a seal version of fast food?
Bought fish – a kilo of flathead, which was the only fish the outlet had fresh. Their really nice looking flake was frozen in one kilo lots, which is too much for us to eat in one or two sittings after it is defrosted – I need to freeze my own fish packs in one meal lots. I froze two batches of flathead and kept some for tomorrow’s tea, for John.
Bought diesel – 74cpl.
Back at camp, washed Truck. John got his big, heavy-duty gloves from where he keeps them in the van boot. Put them on to protect his skin from the car wash chemicals – then took them off again, very quickly! There was a big nest of ants in the fingers of one glove! They had actually eaten through the finger part in one place. So they had to be removed before the washing could continue. These ants wind up in the strangest places. I am not happy that there is such a presence in the van, though.
I put the solar protection liquid on the vinyl and plastic parts of Truck, and then oiled our walking sticks, so they would not crack in the dry heat of parts south.
We took down the awning and packed away the outside things.
Tea was barley soup, scotch fillet steak, mushrooms, then rockmelon.
We have enjoyed the week at Tathra. This is a place we can return to, over and over.
