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.
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