First Camping Getaway for 2016 - Part 6 31 January 2016

I had slept well in my little tent - red wine does that.  When I peeked out the sun was shining and the river had gone.  Inside, the tent was dry but the annex was a mess.  There was about 50mm of leaf litter and other rubbish all across the mesh matting which forms my annex floor.  It was all wet and mucky.  I prepared my breakfast and provided the Lorikeets  with their own slice of fruit toast while I sat in the sun wondering what to do next.

Lorikeet breakfast.

Terry and Jenny told me that a group were going to ride to the Noosa Farmers' Market, about 12Km away, to see what they could buy and also have coffee.  The weather was dry so I decided to leave every thing to dry out a bit before packing up and went off with them.

At 7.00am about 14 of us did the ride and 14 of us regretted it.  The ride to the markets was good but as we locked up our bikes it began to rain heavily and didn't stop  until after lunch.  We all did a quick circuit of the market and decided to ride back to camp and pack up.

Terry helped me take down my annex and collapse the tent.  He was dressed in shorts with bare feet and I was in my cycling gear.  We were both saturated.  I told Terry that I would pack the trailer and that he and Jenny should go home.  Jenny was watching us from the passenger seat of their big RV.

Folding up the annex was a muddy job and I had to sweep the worst of the leaf litter from the annex floor. Soon every thing was packed away.  All the canvas was wet and dirty and so was I!

I got home at 1.00pm and received and indifferent welcome from Louis who loved my house sitter, Barbara.  Actually he had given her  a bad time by running away during Saturday night's storm.  She thought that he was terrified but he loves thunder and lightening and ran through the park and back to my dog walking friend Jo's house.  Barbara had driven around in the storm looking for Louis and was relieved when Jo walked him home on the lead.  The silly thing is that Barbara was leaving my house to go to dinner at Jo's.  Louis had gatecrashed the event and had turned up at Jo's front door, demanded entry and given her other guests a wet woolly welcome.  Dinner was delayed.

I pushed the trailer into my garage, unpacked everything and spread things out to dry.  I was able to erect the tent sufficiently to let it dry out.  Next I had a shower and put on some clean dry clothes.

Barbara gave Louis a farewell cuddle and left to go home about 2.00pm.

It had been an interesting few days.

First Camping Getaway for 2016 - Part Five 30 January 2016

The storm blew itself out overnight and I clambered carefully down my steps to the tent floor which, to my surprise was dry.  I got dressed and went outside to see how the annex had fared and it was a bit wonky but still standing.

The slope on the ridge pole had ensured that no water collected and pooled on the annex.

 I got a spare pole from the trailer box (I keep a couple of spares as I have had one fail before) and soon had the annex back to normal with a slope away from the tent to stop pooling.

It still looks a bit wonky.

 My neighbours  in the tent next to me had been flooded out and spent the night in the resort's games room.  Some other ladies had deserted their tent after dinner last night and had shared a cabin.

I got out my kettle and toaster, which had spent the night out of the rain in the rain in the fridge pod, and prepared mt normal breakfast.  My only dry clothes were my cycling gear so I rigged up a clothesline and hung two sets of shorts and shirts to dry under the annex.

During breakfast I was joined by several Rainbow Lorikeets and Noisy Minor Birds who ended up steeling a slice of toast.  Other campers came to photograph them.

First there was just one

Then they all came.  These are my neighbours who were flooded out.

Vince, who I ride with most Saturdays, reckoned that this was the first time be had pulled a couple of birds in a long time

 

Now one finds my toast.

and soon two were helping themselves

 

Terry, who organised the camping weekend, joined us.  My toast is on the ground being fought over by the Noisy Minors

 After breakfast were all set off on a bike ride to Hastings Street which is the tourist heart of Noosa.  We rode right out to the Noosa River mouth before returning to Hastings Street for coffee.

On the way back to camp we stopped on Gympie Terrace where some members went for an impromptu swim.

Do we or don't we swim

A few try try the water.  It was warm.

Other just paddled.

We stopped of in Tewantin to let some members go shopping before returning to camp via the ferry.

The weather was very hot, 35C and humid, nearly 100%,  and most went swimming in the pool but I had a rest in my tent.  We were all going to meet at 4.00pm to  have a social get together in the games room.  It was Louise's seventieth birthday and Jenny had provided a cake.  At 3.00pm another super storm rolled in.  By 4.00pm my tent was in a river of leaf debris and other rubbish.  Remember site 52,   it is in line with the main storm water drain which had blocked up.  The water was lapping at the door of my tent.  There is a 100mm waterproof tub to the tent and it was about 50mm above the water when I went to games room.  Every thing was off the floor and on my bunk again.

The river just getting going.  Note the litter being swept in the annex.

 We all sang Happy Birthday to Louise the had snacks and drinks while we played silly games.  All the time it poured with rain and we had a terrific lightening show.  About 7.00pm I returned to my tent to find that it was now in its own little lake with only a few millimeters left before it flooded.

A few of us has a barbecue in the camp kitchen which has a roof but no walls and we all huddled to the centre away from the rain.  It was still warm, the barbecues worked and the red wine flowed. About 9.00pm a tractor with a front scraper blade drove up the road in front of my camper and cleaned out the storm water drain which probably saved my tend from flooding.  It had been noted that I could wake up with a waterfront view inside my tent.

It was still raining heavily when I went to bed and in all we had about 125mm.

First Camping Getaway for 2016 - Part Four 29 January 2016

Today I was moving on to Noosa North Shore to join my cycling club's weekend camp for two nights.  I had an early breakfast, 6.00am, and chatted with the girls with the tiny camper.  They had had very disturbed night with the thunder and lightening and had shut the camper up tight.  This meant that the got very hot and stuffy as the temperature did not drop below 27C all night.  In the end they opened the tailgate and huddled together at the other end of the camper as they were afraid of the storm.  At least it wasn't raining.

I packed up and was on my way by 10.00am and checked in the Noosa North Shore Resort just after 11.00am.  I managed to get to the Noosa River ferry just as it was about to leave and there was no queue. Some times you can wait an hour or more to get across.

I set up my camper trailer on powered site 52 (I shall remember that number).  It was already over 30C and the humidity was approaching 100%.  I was bathed in sweat and accepted the offer of assistance from the organizer of the weekend, Terry.  This sped up the set up but would have consequence later.

After a shower and a change of clothes I joined the rest of the club in a sausage sizzle provided by Terry and his wife, Jenny.  They have a big RV with an outside barbecue.  A few members went cycling to the beach and others went swimming in the resort's pool.  I had a rest in my tent.  We had arranged to have dinner in the hotel attached to the resort at 6.00pm.

About 4.30pm I was sitting outside under my annex when a massive thunderstorm hit.   There was thunder and lightening followed by torrential rain.  Soon I noticed that the rain was pooling on my annex's roof adjacent to the tent door.  Normally I set the annex up with a slope away from the tent but had forgotten to do so as Terry an I were in a hurry to escape the heat.  The pool of water was running back towards the tent door which was open and I soon had an inch of water on the tent floor.

I quickly lifted everything, including my 240 volt power board off the floor an onto by bed, which is a meter off the ground, shut up the tent and  tried to get rid of the water of the annex roof.  I gave the roof a good shove from underneath and had several litres of water pour all down the front of me.  I decided to lower the front of the annex to let the water run off.  The first tent pole I lowered decided to lose it's spike and the front of the annex collapsed dumping more water on me.  I was quite warm and I was in shorts and cotton shirt with plastic crocs/sandals on my feet.  At least the water was running away from the tent and the annex looked secure.

I went back into the tent and mopped up the water all over the floor using a microfiber camping towel.  It was now nearly 6.00pm and dark and I noticed the headlights of the resort's coach which was to take us to dinner.  I sipped up the tent, grabbed my wallet got my umbrella from my car and ran after it.  It stopped and let me on to be greeted by my companions with ribald comments about my  disheveled state.

We had a good meal at the hotel but we could hear the heavy rain on the roof punctuated by flashes of lightening and loud thunder,  The coach took us back to camp where my little camper trailer was lit up by my home made 12 volt LED strip lights.  The annex was a bit of a mess but looked secure.  The inside of the tent was dry so I crossed my fingers and went to bed the the storm still raging.

The two Dutch girls were staying on at last night's campsite about 12km away.  I wondered how they survived the storm - welcome to Queensland.

First Camping Getaway For 2016 - Part Three 28 January 2016

There had been severe storms forecast for the Noosa area overnight but all we had at Lake MacDonald was a few minutes of impressive lightening and loud thunder but no rain or wind.  I woke early but laid in until about 7.00am when had my normal breakfast of orange juice, tea and toast sitting under my awning.

Wendy, Jeff and Sue had full cooked breakfast under the barbecue shelter.  They were all moving on today.  Jeff and Sue back to Hervey Bay where Jeff had a job to go to and Wendy down to the Sunshine Coast Airport to park her huge camper and fly off to Sydney for a few days.  They took their time packing up as it was a warm morning with the temperature  nudging 30C.  I took it easy and read in the shade and about 10.00am we all sat in the barbecue shelter for morning coffee.  Wendy had time to kill before she had to go to the airport and we decided to have lunch together in Cooroy at the RSL.

Jeff and Sue drove off about 12.00noon and I followed Wendy to Cooroy where we sat for an hour over lunch.  We both wished each other good luck.  Wendy did not expect to be back for a couple of years.

After lunch I went to the Noosa Botanical Gardens on the other side of Lake MacDonald from where I was camped.  This had been a favourite place for Margaret and I when she was still fit enough to walk our lovely black standard poodle, Pierre.  We would take a Thermos flask and have morning tea in the amphitheater looking over the lake after we had walked through the gardens.  The amphitheater had been built by local volunteers before we arrived in Noosa in 1998.

I enjoyed my walk but as the temperature got into the mid 30s decided to returned to camp and sit in the shade of the barbecue shelter until the sun went down.

Wendy's campsite had now been occupied the smallest camper van I have ever seen.  I was a small delivery van with a double bed and some cooking facilities.  It had been hired, sight unseen, by two girls from the Netherlands and they were setting out on a trip to the tropical north of Queensland and the Northern Territory.  We chatted for a while before I went back to my camper trailer for a light dinner, beans on toast.

After dinner I went for a shower and on the way back found the girls in some alarm.  They were in the barbecue shelter.  One was huddled in the corner and the other standing on  bench.  Between them was a large, but harmless, spider called a huntsman.  Now I don't like spiders but huntsmen are timid so I stamped my foot and it ran off into the bush.  The girls were saved!  They returned to their dinner and questioned me for for some time about their perceived dangers of the Australian Outback.  I advised them that most spiders and snakes were timid and, if left alone, were no danger.  Crocodiles were dangerous but there are warning signs throughout the North where it was unsafe to camp or swim.  I am not sure if they were convinced thatnthey were in more danger of a traffic accident than from the local wild life.

Overnight we had another tropical thunder and lightening display and I wondered how the girls were getting on in their sardine can.

Noosa Botanical Gardens Amphitheater looking across the lake to my campsite.

 

Pierre visiting Margaret in Noosa Hospital December 2003

First camping getaway for 2016 - Part Two 27 January 2016

The purpose of this short prelude to my camping trip with my cycling club was relaxation.  All I did all day was a brief trip into Cooroy for some shopping for dinner.  I spent the rest of Wednesday reading and resting in the shade.  The weather was hot and humid so I didn't need any excuse to do nothing.  I actually climbed up on to my bed and had a snooze.

About 5.30pm  my new friends took up residence in the barbecue hut and asked me to join them for predinner drinks.  I have reduced my alcohol consumption recently  as there is some evidence that it can aggravate permanent AF so I drank diet coke.  The previous night I had shared their potato bake with my steak which was cooked for me by Jeff.  His wife, Sue, and a single lady, Wendy, had cooked up the potato  bake.  After dinner Jeff had done the washing up.  As dinner time approached Jeff fired up the barbecue and asked me what I wanted cooked.  I protested that it was my turn but Sue and Wendy said that Jeff was in charge of the barbecue.  I had a piece of local white fish which I had marinated in lemon juice and wrapped in foil for cooking on the barbecue.  Jeff took charge of it and it was returned  beautifully cooked 20 minutes later.  I persuaded them to share in my coleslaw and potato salad I had purchased earlier and I had a couple of glasses of white wine with dinner.

After dinner Jeff washed up as Sue said that it was his job.  Now Jeff is no shrinking violet.  He is an over six foot tall Maori who until recently played rugby league  and underwater polo.  He had a beautiful calm disposition.

We chatted until about 10.00pm.  I found out that they all came from Hervey bay a couple of hundred kilometres north of Noosa.  Sue and Jeff traveled a lot in their big caravan.  He worked as required as a carpenter and they both took on house sitting all around Australia.   Wendy had been married but she had just retired, bought herself a huge four wheel drive utility with a tray top on which she had a slide on camper.  They were all good friends and this was a farewell trip for Wendy as she intended to travel around Australia for the next few years.  Next day she was parking her ute at the airport before flying to Sydney for a few days to attend her daughter's wedding. On the 5 Feb she will return and continue her travels. 

It had been a relaxing and interesting day but severe storms had been forecast overnight so we made sure there were no loose things about to blow away before going to bed.