How’s the serenity?

Tyler decided a little side boob would not stop him wearing his favourite singlet.

Two days of unrelenting rain taught us many new things about the camper trailer, and how folded bits of canvas are actually flexible swimming pools, overflowing at the precise moment your neckline presents a waterfall opportunity.

In Carnarvon Gorge National Park campground, ‘Van owners toiled without merit at the most popular and time-consuming daytime van-owner activity: Cleaning the Van. Brows furrowed at the campfire over the misleading advice that they would easily enter the park without 4WD capabilities, and plans made to leave just as soon as Brian finished cleaning the spare tyre with a toothbrush, so that they may bask once again in the blinding white exterior of their mobile home.

A pre-breakfast wander up the Rock Pool made me appreciate afresh the abundance of palms and cycads, and a desire to create all manner of craft out of the beautifully textured palm leaf casings that littered the forest floor.

Carnarvon Gorge Rock Pool Walk

Leaving Carnarvon, we made our way up to Emerald and joined the Capricorn Highway, so named for it follows the Tropic of Capricorn. Excited by campfire tips exchanged with a ten year old girl tenaciously seeking a spark among the rain soaked ashes, I planned to be driving when we passed Australia’s largest collection of dinosaur fossils at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs. It wasn’t to be. Rustic gem shops and attractions flew by as W fixed his steely gaze on the odometer and wordlessly expressed a mandate that given my ambitious list of target destinations filling my master excel spreadsheet, there would be no spontaneous stopovers for anything bling-related.

I had read about a riverside ‘free-camp’ in the town of Jericho, and the Grey Nomads forum was all over it. Finding a spot right on river, late afternoon, I was delirious in sunshine. The adjacent Nomad collective invited us to their campfire, and light banter about fishing and fire-making ability ensued. After a spell, a man travelling on his own with an immaculate car and ‘van, systems, levers, and pulleys for everything, and an aged dog invited himself to join our lively throng. Within twenty minutes he managed to insert references to ‘the Vietcong, Abbos, Swamp Arabs, refugees, how the Krauts have ruined free camping for everyone, French backpackers called Mr Zippy, and a great free camp up the line we should stop at’. Being guilty of over-zealous tent zipping action myself I fell silent, pondering the Pauline Hanson factor and how it seemed endemic to campgrounds Australia-wide. He didn’t say, but I think the man was a widower, possibly widowed within the last year, and I felt compassion for him. I surmised his trip has started with his wife, and he was now very lonely, with fearful and angry views that may find favour with some, but would alienate many. As the thrum of generators lulled us to sleep, I concluded sadly that he would never change.