Home and Relieved

How quickly the weather changes, in my previous post I included a photograph of a bright and sunny Gin Gin RA, well, during that night events changed dramatically. Overnight we had continuous rain and buffeting winds. Unknowingly I had parked in a slight depression and morning found us in the centre of a small lake. This was of no consequence when you can walk around bare footed.

We had arranged to have the caravan serviced at Warburton Caravans in Bundaberg on the Friday and made our way to a Thursday night camp at The Oaks Caravan Park, Burnett Heads. We met up with Al and Heather, friends from Hervey Bay who had been staying in the area for a few days. The rain continued all that day and all through the night.

This rain event that we were experiencing was Tropical Depression Oswald and much worse was to come. As you probably heard on the National News Services, The Oaks Caravan Park was one of those areas hit by destructive tornados, luckily for us, by that stage we had moved on.

We packed up at Burnett Heads in drenching rain and delivered the caravan to Warburtons' Service Centre, in the same drenching rain. The rain continued unabated all day. We received the call to collect the van late in the afternoon. By the time we hitched up and drove out of The Service Centre it was too late to leave Bundaberg that afternoon. The sky was dull, the rain was pelting down and we believed that the road surface would have been broken in various sections, we found a park and settled for the night, confined to the limits of the caravan interior. The rain pelted us all night and the wind gusts had the caravan really rocking. I felt as if I was a jelly, wobbling around on the bed that night!

Thanks to the convenience of modern telecommunications we were able to monitor the weather radar on our mobile phone and on detecting a brief break in the weather pattern Saturday morning we made a hasty exit from Bundaberg and made a dash for Hervey Bay. We reached home at about 11 AM. Later that day we heard reports that all roads into Hervey Bay had been cut by Flood Waters. How fortunate we were to be home and in the dry.

The caravan is now unpacked and safely stowed at The Hervey Bay Caravan Park in the care of Margy and Peter.

Now we turn our attention to issues on the Home Front for a few weeks and then begin looking at plans for our next adventure.

Ban Ban Springs

After two months at home with the caravan in storage we felt the need to be on the road again. It is great living in Hervey Bay but we feel liberated living in the caravan at various free camp sites around Australia. We are so lucky that the South Burnett and North Burnett Regions are within a short drive from Hervey Bay. There are many interesting small towns and interesting places to visit. We will be travelling through the North Burnett Region on our travel towards Mount Isa, our eventual destination.

We arranged with our caravan storage hosts at Hervey Bay Caravan Park to pick up our caravan on the morning of the 8th December. Half an hour later we were driving to a Car Wash facility to freshen up the caravan exterior. All cleaned now the next stage was to load the caravan with food, clothes and lifes' other necessities like the Mobile Phone/iPod/Kindle battery chargers etc. As planned we had lunch at home, showered and all fresh now we departed Hervey Bay at 2PM.

We had a planned destination for the first night as we knew we would be leaving home after lunch. We headed for Ban Ban Springs. There is an extensive free camp there alongside The Burnett Highway. We shared the Rest Area with a couple of transports and two other travellers camps. One of whom was on the closing stages of a 12 month circuit of Australia. After a great sleep and breakfast we refuelled at the local Roadhouse and headed north on The Burnett Highway towards Wuruma Dam.

Early morning at Ban Ban Springs. All the campers are spread out around the large rest area.