Eyre Peninsula, March 2018

The wind is becoming stronger and everything is coated in a layer of dust. As soon as I wipe the benches they are gritty again. I give up. Cooking dinner outside has become a joke but the wind doesn’t seem to deter the flies. At least the washing dries within minutes. We spend another day in the van avoiding the heat and wind and locking down everything that rattles in the wind, roof hatches are jammed down extra tight and the door (opening into the wind) threatens to blow off its hinges every time we open it. Something outside is banging, it must be a TV cable on the roof. Poor old El Prado is whingeing about having cabin fever.

We meet for happy hour behind a wind break at the camp kitchen and notice that the building is cleverly designed with about eight wind breaks around it. Obviously, this weather is normal.

Woody crawls into bed and I realise that I’ll never sleep with that constant banging racket. I have an idea, I grab a couple of bandaids (I’m not going to grope around the back of the car for gaffer tape at this hour of night) and wearing Woody’s big shoes (it’s too windy to leave shoes outside, they’d end up in the sea) and clutching the door tightly, I sneak outside. Aha, just as I thought, the noise is coming from the power connection cap, b bang, b bang. I stick it down with the extra large bandaids and peace is restored.

I crawl into bed and roll onto my left side and feel a sharp pain in my left hip. I try again and the same happens. I doze off with the thought “there ya go, another joint has chucked it in”. An hour or so later I wake to find a clothes peg under the sheet. The joy of clean sheets.