Muddy rain and peacocks

So, we woke up on Wednesday morning to a bright yellow sky and a howling gale carrying frigid air from the snowy mountains (presumably). Upon closer inspection we discovered it was raining mud! On even closer inspection we discovered that the van was covered in the aforementioned mud. Obviously Vicki was slightly more heartbroken about this than I was (in her dreams about travelling around Australia the vehicle was always sparkling clean), but I was a bit sad to see the state of my bike! Talk about an adventure, who ever heard of muddy rain? We really thought we had something special to write home about until we turned on the news to find that the whole of Sydney was having a dusty 'Day to Remember' and we had merely been on the outskirts of the excitement.

Anyhoo, after getting hypothermia from the packdown (no Pack-Up-Motorhome botton unfortunately), we were soon on our way to our next destination: Kiama. We were BUFFETED by the howling gale all the way which was a bit disconcerting at times and had me quietly wondering just how strong the wind would need to be to pick us up and carry us away. Not to worry, we made it safe and sound to a lovely caravan park with oceanic views/glimpses...

On Thursday Vicki popped up to see her good friends Ros and Rod whilst I finally got my bike down off the rack and took her for a spin to see the lighthouse and blow hole (as you do when you're in Kiama, unless you're Vicki and you've been there done that a million times already). I even got out my watercolours and pushed a bit of paint around. It's a hard life...























 

















By late afternoon someone who shall remain nameless had the enlightening thought that we were wasting lovely waterviews having to strain to see them through the mud and mire that was pasted onto our windows. Consequently there was a sudden frenzy of activity as the One who shall remain nameless gathered the necessary instruments for The Big Wash. Before I knew what had happened I was up a ladder making use of the Gift of Tallness which as you can imagine is helpful when washing a 3.5m high ve-hicle such as ours. Ah, but how she doth shine now! Since we heard the news that another dust storm is iminent we've been desperately scouring the motorhome manuals for the Self-Cleaning button. Will keep you posted.

Tonight we are staying in a caravan park in Nowra. We're in what seems to be a bit of a paddock beside the section with all the cabins and it's peaceful and full of wildlife, most of which is in the wild-life park opposite but we did have a visit from a friendly kookaburra and one Partial to Bread Peacock... What a beautiful creature! We were trying to look as sexy as possible so he might display his glorious plume, but not too surprisingly our casual camping attire didn't do it for him.