The big wet

It was cloudy, humid and still *%^# hot this morning. No rain, just hot.

Bacon, eggs and toast on the WeberQ as per most other mornings was the standard request, so I assumed the role of Jamie Oliver and cooked to order. And cooked perfectly once again, I might add. 

I took Taz for a walk to the local park whilst Tracy took the kids to the pool this morning. The rain drops started appearing whilst I was out, but not enough to actually wet anything so I kept walking and exploring. 

Just as I got back to the pool, the kids announced they were over it and wanted to go back to the van. Just as we got back to the van, we heard the familiar toot of the local Paddle Steamer tour boat so we went to the river edge to check it out. 

The rain was now actually wetting the ground, yet still not enough to be even called rain - or showers for that matter either - so we stayed for a while whilst Taz plucked the courage to venture into the water and try to catch himself a duck. Obviously they were much smarter and kept their distance. 

After lunch we clambered into the car and went further South to a place called Lake Boga. Such a tiny little town but an amazing history of using their local lake as an inland refuge for WWII plane boats to land and be serviced/repaired. There was up to 1000 Service Personnel in the surrounding areas that worked on the planes who built a heap of local buildings, yet didn't actually live there. When the war was over, they dismantled it all again. 

This is the first place we have found that actually caters for people travelling with dogs. Sort of. If Taz could talk, he would probably describe it more like being unjustly jailed in a 1m x .75m jail cell with a bowl of water that he would rather tip over in protest than give us the satisfaction of actually drinking any of it. The place took us about 40 minutes to wonder through and learn about the operations and history, and Taz made sure he let us know he had done nothing to deserve being imprisoned, by yelping and barking and whimpering for the entire time.... so much so that one of the local residents actually came over thinking that a dog was stuck somewhere or caught up in a barbed wire fence. 

We soldiered on though and tried our hardest to not go and see him and give him false hope that he may be paroled early. 

There was also an old (but restored) communications bunker with some fascinating old equipment, especially an old plug cord telephone exchange, which I actually remember seeing a very similar unit when I first started work all those years ago. 

Finally we finished up and bailed out Taz. The excitement and joy of being together again was a great feeling - I think Taz was excited to see me too. 

The trip back saw the showers get heavy enough that I actually had to put the wipers on the intermittent setting. Apparently the weather forecasters got it completely wrong again and SA only got 20mm of rain with no wind, so the 1mm we got over the last 4 hours looks like it is as good as it is going to get. 

The night ended with more swimming, another Weber for tea, and more cricket - this time the One Day match. I am getting really used to this camping life.