Another pleasant sub zero Wednesday greeted us in the morn of the Kensington-On-Murray departure. Pack up was quicker than Tuesday, but we were still slow in getting our arses into gear, or at least the gear into the trailer. I felt remarkably better after removing myself from the nauseating mercy of the day before; little did I know what was in store for me.
Dad fuelled up at the caravan post office (there is little choice in Kensington-On-Murray) (and why is it Kensington-On Murray? Did they think that people would be confused with the suburb? We don’t say Newcastle-In-NSW or Maitland-On-Boot-Shaped-Peninsula) where the bungy pasty made its return, and I starred guiltily at my record breaking attempt. The dog behind the fence was barking at me. I could not tell if was a territorial dispute or that it thought I was about to cut its lunch. You know what puppy dog, you can have my seconds.
We jumped the border in Victoria, to no who ha, and started the long slog that is the Mildura Sturt Highway. Sigh.
It was after lunch when we arrived and adjusted to the Victorian time, and my arse was caning so an extended rest was in order. I directed dad to the Mildura Microbrewery for I had fond memories of the place. It took a long time for our food to come out, and I had to go and remind them about our drinks. Sigh.
We went hunting for a heater, with no such luck, but not if such luck was bad, then we had such luck. Stuff it, let’s keep going. We headed south through Red Cliffs (no cliffs) towards Ouyen (70% vowels – way more than necessary), but took a left at Hattah (not a sound from a karate movie) so that we could join up again to the Murray. This road saw the return of the bumps and my bum got a hammering once again. We had to stop. Just outside of Wemen we pulled over into a rest area and it was magical. A look at the watch told us that we would be pushing to make it as far as we hoped, but neither Dad nor I could care. After a couple of nights under canvas it was time to relax under a roof.
The next biggish town without banjo playing freaky kids on the porch was Robinvale. Even then it was pushing it. Some dude in a V8 was just doing laps of the main street that would put beachies to shame – he needs a hobby.
We bought a heater from a store about to close, got directions from an army surplus store that had only recently erased “rifles” from its list of specialities, and headed to the first caravan park they suggested. The caravan park was right down by the river, if a kid up stream sneezed it could make the wheels of your van wet, and had beautifully manicured lawns but all of their cabins were booked out (suspiciously unattended at the time mind you). A “No Vacancy” sign was up at the Motel, and the last caravan park could only offer us a powered sight. We had no choice, it was already getting dark and I was buggered.
Then another bout of sickness struck, but this time I would not be breaking the helmet off record, I would be pushing for the getting the key in the toilet door record. Dad thought it might be just my body going into shock after doing labour type activities putting the tent up, but my bottom would disagree.
And can I say caravan parks, having a timer on your toilet block lights may save you power, but it does not help if I have to check my wiping technique with the torch app on my phone. Sigh.
The heater in the tent was pretty awesome though. Very happy with that result.
No comments:
Post a Comment