Oh the days where a glimpse of sunlight brightened not just my day, but my outlook of said day. Yes, over the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th of April this year, my immediate family and I went down to Georges Creek, NSW (Coordinates for those enthused: 30°45’09.1″S 152°11’26.3″E). Of course, the Easter long weekend would not be complete without more people we know (and some we don’t).
These people were my Uncle and his family, my cousin and her fiancé, and her (to be) in-laws. 10 of us all up, quite the merry bunch, full of stories and goodhearted humour.
So, on with the recollection of the Easter weekend.
It all started at 3:30am on Friday the 3rd of April, it had been raining the entire day Thursday, and all night before I woke up in a sleep-deprived state. I had been anticipating getting up so early that I was excited about going, so naturally, I hadn’t slept for more than half an hour straight that night. However, the alarm did sound from my phone at 3:30am, and that meant that it was time to awaken from my warm, cosy, relaxing bed.
Into the morning I sprang! jumped! walked slid slumped, stumbling to the shower in hopes of washing away the tired face I had grown overnight. I had enough time to have some quick breakfast, and check my emails. Whilst sitting in a posture that I’m sure will one day come back to hurt me, sipping the “Up & Go” liquid breakfast I had so cleverly remembered to put in the fridge a few days ago, I saw that I had a new email from my Uncle. It said that Mum and Dad needed me to bring down some advantix for Billy, he had been swimming and the stuff seems to not work too well after he gets wet.
I grabbed the pack of advantix from the cupboard and placed it on the dining table. It was time to go, so I grabbed my car keys, locked the house and armed the house alarm. Off to my Uncle’s I go!
Awesome.
Yep, I’m here.
Forgot the frigging advantix.
It’s a 20 minute drive back home… Nah Billy will be fine. I knew Mum and Dad only wanted the stuff as a precaution, they didn’t need it urgently.
[FYI: No, he was not with me at home, this is just in here because I like the pic.]
Packed my bags into the car and awaited my cousin and Auntie to finish packing their things into the car as well. Things packed, check. Still raining, check.
Cousin says she wants to drive the first bit into the city to pick up her Dad, says she never gets to drive the first bit, no arguments here. Coolios, she drives us into the city, with mum back-seat-driving from the front passenger seat (as all good mothers do). We get to the pickup point, and we wait in the pouring rain at 4:35am for my Uncle to get off of shift.
I switch seats with the driver- here’s the bit I’ve been waiting for, driving the car, well, not really a car, more like a 2.8 ton Diesel bumper car (it was really raining).
Now I’ll tell you what the car is and why it is important for me to tell you this: The car is a LandCruiser Prado 150 series, 3L 4cyl Turbo Diesel, with a DP Chip. This car has a HF radio, a CB radio, I’m pretty sure it’s got a satellite beacon in it somewhere, and a GPS navigator. It also is attached to a large, 1.4 ton silver and khaki anchor, also known as a camper trailer, though everything is quite new, so there’s no real danger here, just got to be extra cautious about braking distance in the wet.
I did track my journey from the City to Grafton, all 308.24 km of it (took 3hr 35min of non-stop driving). We did stop in Maccas at Grafton though, and I got hotcakes, hash brown and orange juice, omnomnomnom.
It was at this time that the rain dropped off the radar. Well, actually we just drove away from it. Turns out that if you drive far enough, you can run away from bad weather.
My cousin drove from there to Ebor falls, which was about an hour and a bit away from Grafton (I did not do any more tracking until after the weekend).
We must press on! However this place is pretty pretty, but we’ll be moving pretty quick pretty soon, so better get going- But not before a quick driver change, we had just come through some narrow roads (still dual lane carriageway, but no shoulder) and my cousin decided she would like a break until the roads are a bit nicer.
Little did she know that the roads were only going to get better from here! By better I mean narrower, more dirty, and in about 80km, it’s going to turn into loose gravel. My Uncle said that he should drive since I did 3 and a bit hours this morning, though I felt fine and was raring to get back into the driver’s seat.
A bit of back and forth, and we switched again (I am now driving, yay!). We pulled out of the park and came to a T intersection, and I had misjudged the braking capacity of the car/trailer combination just a bit… so braking was slightly uncomfortable. However, nobody seemed to be having a stroke, so I’d call it mildly successful.
About 45 minutes down the winding black road we came to a graceful part, an exciting turn of events, an unravelling of joy between my Uncle and I. It was dirt. But not just ANY dirt, it was dirt we could DRIVE on! An unspoken veil of invigorating happiness, along with some giddiness and mostly just anticipation of the moment. That was what fell upon the two of us in the front of the car, hitting us just like the subtle drop of the level of the road.
I can’t speak for the two occupants in the back of the car, but I can imagine that the grips on the doors and seats tightened somewhat as we experienced a slight amount of drift around every corner.
We reached the top of the range leading down to the camp ground; only about 25km left to go until we can pitch tent and relax.
We had just regrouped with the other people travelling down with us to enjoy this long weekend together. The Hulix went first, calling out any cars coming up so we could find a place to pull over safely and have enough room for the people coming up to pass by without getting bogged in the mushy side of the road.
Good thing too; the road wasn’t wide enough for two cars in most places, and it was an almost fatal drop off of one side, and a wall of rock and dirt on the other. But we made it down swiftly without a hitch; I met up with Mum and Dad and of course, the Bilbo Baggins. Dang that dog is soft.
We all set up camp and had some afternoon tea as we watched, grimacing at the dark grey clouds looming over to the south east. They floated ever closer, like a Caddy Shack joke in a pool, nobody wanted it, but this wasn’t chocolate, it was just… just wet.
So it rained… And rained… And rained.
I decided enough is enough, we’re camping, and dang it, we’re going to have a camp fire. I’m tired of everybody huddled under their own awning away from each other, being all anti-social.
I asked around, and sure enough one of them had a cheap tarp they didn’t mind putting high over the fire place. I assured them it wouldn’t even get warm, the rain would cool it, and the heat from the fire would dissipate enough at that height anyway.
Up went the tarp, on went the sticks, the blocks, and then the log. It was a nice fire, if only we could sit around it without getting wet from the rain…
Up went another tarp, next to the fire this time, in came one, two and three other people. Awesome! It worked! I felt like a shepherd of people.
Good time ensue.
The rain died down a lot, enough for me to salvage what was left inside my little tent, trying to get it dry. The bedding was touching the floor (NOOOOOOOOO).
It was soaked. Damn.
Luckily got it dry in time, don’t do that again. Sleeping bags are good.
Saturday night comes, I pull out my Easter eggs, ready for the morning, going to get up early and put them everywhere around camp, give everyone a nice surprise when they get up.
Sunday morning, Easter is here! Woot woot!
The rain has cleared, the birds are singing, and its 5:30am, time to hide the eggs!
Dad was already up, he said he didn’t sleep too well, back was a bit stiff, but Bill was there for him, so that was a nice walk for them both. Dad helped me hide the eggs, I gave him half of them, we hid them in plain sight, and everywhere else.
I put some on car door handles, one in a cutlery drawer, one on a tap, on a tarp edge, everywhere!
Everybody else, one by one, got up, did their morning routine, and completely missed ALL of the eggs!
Good god people, I know it’s early, but wow.
Anyway, I put them in places they had to use in the morning (tap, cutlery, etc.) so it was inevitable.
They noticed! Awesome, laughter and chocolate enjoyment ensued.
That was pretty much the entirety of Easter Sunday, then the afternoon came, filled it with board games, card games and snacks.
Night fell, my Uncle asked around to see if everybody wanted to do a communal dinner in a camp oven (known as a Dutch oven, not to be confused with a Dutch oven). It was an absolutely delicious meat and vegetable stew, beef, potatoes, carrot, onion, sweet potato, peas and a few other things, along with some port and some nice wine.
As if that wasn’t enough! He then made a self-saucing chocolate pudding!
I like my Uncle; he makes really nice camp meals, and also loves radios.
The self-saucing pudding. I’m a rather quiet person, don’t usually speak up or out at much. But in the right company, I’ve been known to say some rather funny things.
I said, to my dad, “Hey, so when are we getting that… SelfSaucingChocolatePudding?”
“Some… SelfSaucingChocolatePudding?” Said Dad,
“Yeah, that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding.” I said,
So then dad yells out to the rest of the camp, “Hey! When’s that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding gonna be ready?”
“I’d really like some of that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding!” he continued.
He repeated this in similar statements, always including, sometimes twice, the “SelfSaucingChocolatePudding” conglomeration.
It was a “you had to be there” kind of thing, but I thought I should share it anyways.
So we had the SelfSaucingChocolatePudding… My god it was so good. We had it with custard and dollop cream, and I think it was the best desert I’ve tasted yet.
We stayed up a while longer, knowing we had to pack up and go the next day.
We all enjoyed the last night thoroughly, it was a memorable weekend, and it had ended on a very satisfying high note.
Monday came around and the sun was up, the tents were drying, and the tarps were finally taken down from the fireplace.
We packed the trailer and hooked it up to the car, said our goodbyes and headed up the range. We got about 10km into the drive and saw what we had been camping in. We had been in the valley of the mountains, and the cloud had condensed enough not to be able to get over the mountain peaks, and was trapped in the valley. It was quite wonderful to behold.
Once we made it to the top of the range, we drove further and the loose gravel turned to asphalt. Sweet, sweet asphalt.
I don’t know what it is, but once you’ve been on bitumen for a while, you want to drive on dirt, then when you’ve been driving on dirt, you embrace the relief of smooth black road like a long lost friend- warm, comfortable, safe but completely platonic.
Dad drove most of the way, up until we hit Guyra, NSW. I drove from there to home, rather uneventful drive, but Bill didn’t seem to mind what anything was. He was asleep.
Once we got home, we set up the tents to dry them out completely before packing them away again, ready for another relaxing, good-memory-making trip.
Ok, now that (I think) was a long post.
Here’s some more Billy.
Thanks for reading!
Travers.
