Day 48 Sunday, 26/6/2016, Rollingstone, Overcast, cooler

Hallelujah, our neighbours have started to pack up.

We farewell ‘the Sugars’ who are heading home to Mackay. F and L (yes, even they chuckle about that one) have kindly offered us a camp spot under their house if we need it (those big Queenslander houses are rather handy). They are indeed charming people.

While I work on finishing our caravan club newsletter, of which I am late in dispatching, Woody lies on the bed and watches the neighbours pack up. Last night they had a family meeting and mother declared that breakfast should be in the camp kitchen. This morning around 9:00 father ventured over to investigate the suitability of said facilities. He rings mother to tell her that he’ll ring again when he knows what they need to bring. OMG. She calls the kids back from the beach and tells them to await the call. Guess what they need? Rice bubbles! With such a complicated task at hand she takes herself, rice bubbles and #2 child leaving #1 wandering up and down the camp calling for them in that loud theatrical booming voice. Oh, spare us! Eventually #1 figures out where they are and we get some peace. Shortly after they all return and spend three, yes three hours folding up the two nylon tents and the sunshade. Although we do notice that they are a family of people who pick things up and set them down somewhere else. So most of their morning is spent walking in circles with one item at a time while father heaps loud and effusive praise upon the children for their help in the interests of a cohesive family. Interestingly we learn that a tent can be folded with just one hand and I believe that the secret is in doing it very ….slowly. They finally get away after 12:00, two hours beyond check out time and we learn that they complained to staff that their gate smart key wouldn’t work……..because it had expired!

Woody declares it “one of the most entertaining mornings I’ve spent caravanning.”

Then our mates El and Elle Prado arrive and, in her zest to get a lovely sea breeze through the van Elle opens the fly door and it locks itself. This is the problem that they had in SA last year when El Prado had to climb out the window. This time it is Elle locked in and she’s not going to climb out that bloody window! We arrive to find the park owner with screwdriver in hand, but to no avail. While they wait for a locksmith to arrive from Townsville, it is Sunday after all, we have a drink around the window as Elle sits on the bed inside. Cheers!

We wander off to cook dinner and Elle is finally freed around 7:00pm, El Prado follows a little later. The door has been restored to its previous condition ie it locks but the screen door cannot be separated. No doubt a few soothing glasses of red are in order.

2021 Note: I’m starting to lose count, but I think The Prado’s have been locked in or out of their van 5 times now. We returned to Streaky Bay in SA with them in 2018 and they got locked out again and with no locksmiths for hundreds of kms a kind neighbour got the door open. The same thing happened in Alice Springs in 2019 and Toothless got them out, but we weren’t there to bear witness as we’d blown our engine down in Murray Bridge, SA. You just can’t have this much fun sitting at home.