Mar 8, 2010

Disaster Weekend

This weekend was the long weekend, so we went camping with friends. It was forecasted to have a few showers - so we thought it would be ok.

First of all we got there.... and the awning ripped in two. The cats had finally prodded it with their claws enough for it to be totally destroyed. So we lost a fair bit of living space. Oh well....

Then we found out that the electricity amp thing-a-me-bob that gives us lights in the caravan was completely fried. So we spent the weekend in the dark, apart from the light from the microwave.

Could anything else go wrong?? No of course not....

Saturday morning it was blowing a gale. VERY strong winds. Then came the rain. It poured, it thundered, lightning flashed. It was a very blowy blustery day. We snuck a trip down to the beach when the wind suddenly stopped blowing. We stood on the beach while the kids tried to fly their kites.... no success because it was so still... then the kids gave up and went swimming instead... in their clothes. LOL. R and I stood together, watching a big black mass move towards us, lightning zig-zagging to the ocean, thunder cracking. It absolutely bucketed down and the wind picked up again, blowing a gale.
Flood warnings were released, and we sat and waiting. It wasn't too bad overnight, but on Sunday we were this [-] close to packing up and going home. Sunday afternoon, after a trip into a nearby town we came back to a campsite that had been swamped in water. We tried our best to clean it up. All of our chairs were drenched... it was soggy everywhere. We never banked on yet another storm ripping through, blowing a gale, rain pelting, hail, thunder, lightning... it was crazy!! I watched with horror as the blocked storm water drains stopped taking the excess water and it started to rise. The road looked like a river, the campsite looked like a lake. Our friends tent was on water! It was dreadful! A mouse tried to escape the water and snuck under the tent - and ended up squashed to death instead of drowned. LOL.

The next day we were very happy to pack up and go home.

We got to experience 1/4 of the annual rainful, in less than 24 hours. Not bad.

Next time we are going to camp in the desert!!

1 comment:

Kakka said...

Bloody hell, I hate camping at the best of times, so wel done for sticking it out in the worst of times. Hope you all eventually dried out.