Rain, Rain and …………………………….

Wednesday 26th June

We have to leave Gladstone today because rain is forecast for later and unfortunately, we don’t have the time to be stuck here. Ironically it is a beautiful morning and it ir really tempting to stay, maybe we’ll be able to get back this way again.

It’s not long before the rain statrts and becomes quite hard, it is not really good fun towing a three and a half tonne caravan in these conditions.

After about an hour the traffic is stopped by a flood across the road, fortunately we can get through it OK but we hear on the radio that the police have had to close it temporarily. This is the only road south at this point, as the top half of the Indian Ocean Drive is closed for absoulutely essential improvements.

The weather was like this for the rest of the day. None of the ‘Rest Areas’ were safly accessible so we decided to try Coronation Park at Coronation Beach, where we went many years ago. The ‘park’is a new area which has been well designed, there is no power or water but we don’t need either.

The place is all red dirt and now of course is all red mud! We have to stay inside the van because of the rain and mud. It is no better in the morning as we head south again.

We’re going to Moora tonight because we know that there’s an area of hardstanding. By the time we get there the sun is shining so we can get some of the stuff dry. It doesn’t last long and is soon raining again, another night in the van listening to the rain!

Not much better in the morning as we head for home but then, ah, ha, sunshine as we approach Perth which remains until we get home.

So we’re back, after a different but very enjoyable trip. The only plan we really had was to spend more time good places and up to a point we managed that, although we would have spent up to a week on the de Grey, sadly not to be.

The weather made a significant impact in as much as we couldn’t get down ‘the middle’ because all the dirt roads were closed but we did find a couple more good camp sites.

The car went well and apart from a couple on small issues the Bushtracker was good.

We’ve already started discussing next year’s possibilites with fellow travellers.

Thank you for reading the blog, particularly those who make comments, they are welcome and please feel free to make suggestions for improvements.

Pat and Roger