Day 5 – ‘Chill’ out in Ceduna

Today we decided to stay in Ceduna for the day – a study day for Kim who was starting to feel vaguely hysterical about not doing enough study.  As it turned out the weather was for the first time, really wet – pelting rain and howling wind all night, and then throughout the day squalls of rain coming across the bay.  Kim spent most of the day in the van hard at work, whilst Rich toured Ceduna.  

 We have been struck by the grey nomads – so many of them!!  Most in huge rigs with huge vehicles pulling them – one has to wonder about the fuel consumption.  Some of them are fairly fit looking and others you have to wonder how they manage to caravan – even in a huge rig!  They look so unhealthy that you kinda expect them to keel over just setting up let alone navigating their way around a caravan!  But so many of them – there are FOUR caravan parks in Ceduna (a town of 2 700) and we struggled to find a spot!!  We have started categorizing them – our first categorization is simply two kinds:  Mr Nosy Bossy:  this man wants to tell you how to park your van, which way you should orientate yourself, how to set up your hoses and is usually racist (warning you loudly to watch out for the locals), drives a HUGE vehicle and rig and has a hearing aid so there is only opportunity for ‘one way’  transfer of information – him to you!  Then there is Mr Helpful – he usually has a smiley wife, a smaller vehicle, he hovers in the background and only offers advice if you ask for it.  (No guessing which one we prefer!)  Both usually have good advice to offer – the preference comes with the delivery.

Anyway, the day was fairly quiet except for a late afternoon walk that went the way of most walks that involve Richard – cross country, and with a hint of adventure – this time the adventure involved trying to outrun a massive storm – ending up in a beachside shelter sheltering behind a puny umbrella and watching the storm sweep across the bay. 

Quite a magnificent sight!  Then of course we realised that we will be crossing a state border again tomorrow which means that we have to dump all our fresh fruit and veggies, and according to the current Mr Nosy Bossy, our honey too!  We have doubts about that, but I was so irritated about ONCE AGAIN having to dump fresh fruit and veg that I took a tour of the caravan park and gave away all our stuff – I would rather give it away than throw it away!  Grrrr!

Tomorrow is a big drive – we are going to try and do as much of the Nullabor as we can – so will drive for up to ten hours!  Should be fun!!! (was Kim being a touch sarcastic there – time will tell, we will see after 10 hours driving).