This Adventurous Age

TUESDAY 5 MAY     TORQUAY

There was really consistent, heavy rain through the night. We had several inches.

We did not get up until 10am, as it seemed darker and earlier; cannot see the clock from the bed.

There were a couple of dribbly leaks in the back corner of the van, but we could not tell why or exactly where the water came from. The wide back window was slightly open. Outside, I climbed up on our little folding ladder to check it out. The rusty rivets on the lower rung gave way and I came down awkwardly, spraining an ankle and skinning the shin bone. I got quite a shock and it hurt like hell. Ice treatment was needed. In the course of fishing out some frozen food to put on the leg, John decided a fridge defrost was needed – it was quite iced up. The cold – and the leg up for a couple of hours seemed to just about fix things. I watched while John did the fridge defrost. Our Vitrifrigo compressor fridge does not automatically defrost – we must turn it off and leave the ice to soften, then scrape it off. Too much of an ice build up makes the fridge cycle more and use more power. While the defrosting is happening, I put the contents of the freeze box in a bucket, with newspaper and towels over it, so our meat and fish do not defrost too.

After lunch, I strapped the ankle – it is the right one, which is very weak anyway, after multiple past sprains while playing sports, and when bushwalking.

Drove to Target to get new thongs. I also bought a small blue china teapot, so I can make proper green tea. It seemed expensive, at $13.

We checked out the cinema centre for a Titanic screening, it being cheap night. It would be $7 each, but the film did not start until 8.30pm. Decided we did not want to leave Truck parked in the dark in that part of the town! We would stay in and watch a video instead.

Went grocery shopping. Quite a big stock up and spent $105.

We are due to leave the park tomorrow, but decide to stay a bit longer. We are really undecided about going to Fraser Island, given the weather. Floods have closed the Bruce Highway between Maryborough and Gin Gin; traffic must detour through Bundaberg.

The reason we slowed down, after sitting out Easter at Tewantin, was to let the holiday crowds disperse from Fraser Island, and let the weather be good for such a visit. But it is hard to get a run of dry days. Still, it is somewhere we really want to go and I am loathe to leave here without doing so, even if we do get wet!

There are ants everywhere. Forget the Weather Bureau and its modern technology – just look at the ant activity! If they are building big, high mounds, it might be time to think about going elsewhere, while you still can! Ants are being a pest around our outside table and chairs – little bitey ones. We have some in the van, too; this has been a problem since Canberra. Suppose that staying in one place for any length of time lets them figure out ways of getting in. We just have to keep spraying and using Baygon whenever we can work out their entry points.

There was some more rain in the early evening – short but heavy.

The ducks have not been around today. The creek/lagoon/swamp next to the van park has risen noticeably. Maybe there is enough new food there to keep them occupied? Maybe they don’t like rain? Maybe they know something we don’t?

Tea was pasta and my best ever tomato sauce, followed by bought tofu icecream and ginger berry topping.