Does anyone have an Ark?

It started to rain again at lunch time yesterday, and we've had 11" of rain since 6pm last night, torrential downpours with strong winds accompanying them.  At the morning meetings the sides and rear of the tent were filled with umbrellas - it was quite difficult to find somewhere to 'park' ours by the time we arrived.

Rain poured in through the holes where the poles go in the tent running down the poles. And lots of chairs were moved avoid the drops, so there were lots of bare patches.  The wind was so strong that even in the 'dry' spots we were getting rained on at times and some people were sitting with their blankets over their heads or their umbrellas up - it was a funny sight, but the blessings from the message were there nevertheless.

Marilyn and Rick had been around earlier today taking photos and here is the location where we had the meeting tent last year - well and truly under water this morning, and even more so by now.

This is beside the road entering the convention ground this morning,  by now the road is cut off totally.

We went straight from the 10.30 meeting to the dining hall, after having a good talk with some friends.  And once again stayed talking after lunch.  Until our friend Rick came up to tell us that our annexe was flat on the ground!  Unfortunately he didn't stop to take a photo of it in his hurry to come and get us so he could help us fix things up - strange, that :)  And I didn't think of it either when we came back, the thought of rescuing what little was still dry being uppermost in my mind.

We rushed back to the caravan and there was our awning ripped halfway across the length, which meant that it had sagged and the whole annexe walls were sagging too, their entire weight leaning on the rope Peter had stretched from the corner where the tear had started to the one diagonally opposite.  I retrieved a pile of ironing I had on the table - no need to do it now, it is totally soggy.  Rescued the dirty washing (still dry) and got that into the car, along with our comfortable folding chairs.  Then I dismantled the large table and chairs that we had for eating outside and threw Nathan's soggy bedding onto the floor of the caravan.

Meanwhile our two friends and another chap who was passing by were dismantling the annexe walls, folding them up and extricating the broken arm of the awning from the mess.  They dismantled Nathan's folding bed and got that out of the way, and then they were able to roll up the awning into position, where we will tie it in place when it stops raining.

Funny thing is, I didn't think to take a photo of it all before we started to clean up the mess either :)  I only thought of it as they were getting the last of the awning rolled up.  Sad, because it really did look dramatic lol!  But we praise God that it didn't happen in the strong winds last night, because that arm broke right above Nathan and the whole part came down on his bed.  If it had happened while he was in the bed he surely could have been hurt, so we are grateful.

Now all I have to do is to dry everything off!  Including a lovely thick wool-filled doona.  And still the rain comes from the sky as though it is never going to end....just like a tropical monsoon.  Never mind, we are snug and warm in our caravan, and are all safe.  So all is well.  And the sun will shine again.
Blessings
Sandie

Tuesday and Wednesday: musical saws and the amen dog.

I can't believe how quickly time is going by - it feels as though camp has just begun and yet it is half over!  Yesterday there were outings offered: two bus trips or a river cruise, for the afternoon.  We chose not to go, preferring to go ourselves some time when we can spend a longer time and not be limited by having to keep to a fixed schedule.  Instead, we went into town and Peter did a bit of shopping while I had a much-needed haircut.  And bought some nice throws to put over our legs for the morning and evening meetings, when it is very chilly indeed - the temperatures are down around 6degC.

Today I thought I'd spend some time taking photos around the place.  First I managed to get a load of sheets washed and a load of other things and hung them all out on the line, then went to a meeting.  We had been there for 30 minutes when it started to rain :(  Peter went rushing off to rescue the washing from the clothesline, and after the meeting when I rejoined him at the caravan we rigged up a line across the annexe for the sheets, and moved the transportable mini clothesline into the annexe too for me to hang all the smaller items on it.  That was the end of the opportunity to take photos for the day - it has been raining ever since.  I don't mind the rain, or the drop in temperature that has come with it.  I love the sound of the rain on the roof, we are all warm and dry and we have warm coats and umbrellas to go to and fro wherever we want.  But no photos.

Except for a couple I took with my phone in the big tent.  They are not wonderful - I do apologize for that.  We are sitting to the side of the tent so that Nathan can read the words to the songs or watch the speaker on the large screen that is there, but that doesn't make for good photos.  The first is of a special item we had today, of a couple of the men playing two saws.  Yes, that's right - 2 saws.  Just ordinary carpenter's saws, about 3 ft long or so, and they played them with a bow like you would use for a violin.  It was very lovely music too.  I was amazed.  I  hope you can make out in these photos that the handle end of the saw is butted up against their knee, and they are holding the other end in their hand.

Last year I showed you a photo of Dolly, the dog that says 'amen'.  Well, she's here again this year.  She's a Schnauzer Poodle cross - a Schnoodle and she's just the sweetest thing.  She is sitting with her people just across the aisle from where we are sitting.  Dolly knows just when to let out that single yap - just as though she's saying 'Amen'.  Sorry again about the quality of the photo.

Here she is enjoying one of the special items

You can't really see her all that well in these photos so I'll show you the one I posted last year, when she 'posed' for me.  She's grown a bit since then, but she's still a friendly, likeable dog.  Much prettier than she appears in the photos, too.

There are quite a few small dogs here at camp.  In fact one lot of our friends have brought their furbaby with them - she goes everywhere with them.  She is a shih tzu-Maltese cross and her name is Pebbles.  There are a couple of other shih tzu-maltese cross dogs, white like my furgrandbaby Fluffy, and also a most beautiful King Charles Spaniel, as well as various other types of dogs.  About half a dozen of them come to the tent for meetings, and you'd never even know they were there until you see them leaving afterwards.

Now despite my talk about dogs, I'm not actually a dog person believe it or not.  I guess having Fluffy adopt me as she has is changing me a bit.  But I don't mind small dogs (as long as I can wash my hands) and these ones here at camp are so well behaved.  Cats are rather more my cup of tea.  But I do love my grandfurbaby Fluffy.  So I'll leave you with a photo of her just for the sake of it - it has no relevance to anything here whatsoever :)

Blessings,
Sandie

Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Sabbath (Saturday) was a very full-on day, with meetings scheduled at 7.30, 9,30, 11, 2, and an evening concert at 7pm.  I was feeling very tired, since I am still recovering from the bronchitis and doing a lot of walking from the caravan to the tent and back again; from the caravan to the amenities (to save our toilet from getting too full too quickly); from the tent or the van to the dining room at lunch time and all the other incidental walking around I'm doing - quite deliberately I might add.  So I skipped the afternoon meeting and had a sleep, and didn't attend the concert either because my cough was freshening up in the cold air.  The group giving the concert is great - a group of 5 teachers from one of our schools at Avondale, here on the north coast of NSW.  They had given special items earlier in the day and I really enjoyed them but I just couldn't make the concert.  Peter and Nathan had a really good time though.

On Sunday I did manage to squeeze in two loads of washing between meetings - and got it all dry too.  The nights are really cold.  Saturday night was 2deg C

One of the Speakers on Sunday brought some artifacts along that he had brought home from a tour of the Bible Lands.  The first is one of the actual mud bricks made by the Israelite slaves as they were constructing a pyramid before the Exodus.  You can see the straw in the brick, and it is amazing to see something so relevant to what we read about in the Bible.

The second object came from the remains of the Israelite slave village nearby.  It's a small pot, still able to hold fluid.  And on its exterior surface you can see the fingerprints of the ancient Israelite who made it all those years ago.

It was a very moving experience to see these objects.

The workshop yesterday was on art, and today was on photography.  Both were very instructive.  The Art one was taken by artist Phil McKay, who once worked in  graphic design,  making a good living doing tattoo art and art for music albums and such, then went into then into painting murals on motor bikes and cars.  He was earning lots of money doing this but not feeling that it was what he really wanted to do.  In the end he started doing some Christian painting and he now does that full time.  He has moved from painting with a brush in the traditional way to painting digitally and you can't tell the difference with the finished product - his work is amazing.  I can't show you a photo  here because I don't want to infringe copyright but you can see  it if you go here .  He does inspirational and spiritual paintings and also does a lot of wildlife paintings for Australian Geographic magazines and others as well.

Today the workshop was on photography, the first part being on power point presentations.  That had nothing in it that I didn't already know, but the second and major part was of more interest to me, being on different ways of managing your photos, and keeping them accessible.  I knew most of what was presented in this part as well, but there were some very helpful links given so that made it worth while going.  While I was listening to the rest I made use of the time by deleting duplicate photos from our Western Australia trip :)      It was handy that we had been asked to bring our laptops with us if we had them here! There is no workshop tomorrow because there is a bus trip on - all the other meetings are being moved half an hour earlier to make time for that.  I am hoping to make use of the time to catch up with some things I want to do here.
Talk to you tomorrow
Blessings,
Sandie

Thursday 16th, Friday 17th May

Thursday 16th May
It was so nice to have a good sleep-in this morning.  We all slept really well in fact and didn’t wake up until 8.30.  We had morning worship with Rick & Marilyn, Leona & Ian.  I’ve brought the book ‘Steps to Christ’  by E.G. White with us and we read the first chapter, reading a paragraph at a time going around the circle.  Then we read Joshua 6, which is about Joshua and Jericho.  We chose that because it’s the chapter that our family is up to in reading the Bible.  While we were doing this we had an audience: a kookaburra sitting in a nearby gum tree.  Peter and I took some photos, then he flew off to catch something to eat. 

 After a while another kookaburra called and this one swooped low over our heads in the direction of the other bird.   But later on this afternoon he was back again and I got some more photos, including the one above.

We also saw three pelicans just circling on the air thermals.  It didn’t seem to be for any particular reason, they were just going round and round, up and down with the air currents.  We thought it looked as though they were simply doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it.

The campground is steadily filling up with more and more caravans and campers.  People are greeting friends, reunions are taking place and the atmosphere is wonderful. All you hear is the laughter of people and the singing of birds.

  And the birds just keep on calling – so many birds!  They are so high in the trees that most of the time it is hard to see them but we are all trying to identify the calls.  There are lots of rainbow lorikeets, and a whole flock of them flew overhead this morning.  But we’ve also seen some pink and grey galahs, magpies, noisy miners.  There is a bird nesting in a huge gum tree quite near us, but we can’t quite see what it is yet – Peter just caught a glimpse of it today.

Peter spent quite a bit of the day washing the caravan thoroughly, and I did the church bulletin then helped him put the annexe up.  My cough is improving by the day and I even went for a bit of a walk this morning over to the amenities near the ABC (Adventist Book Centre) to see whether some other friends, Laraine and Bob had arrived yet.  They hadn’t at that time but did so around 3pm and Laraine came over a bit later to say hello.

The only minis I have brought with me is some stitching. I managed about ½ hr stitching before I helped Peter with the annexe, and have done some more tonight.  We are enjoying watching and listening to Nathan’s DVDs of Steps to Christ in Song, and other DVDs that we have brought with us.  We really don’t miss tv at all.  Nathan is reading one of the books we gave him at Christmas and it is lovely to see him so engrossed in Christian reading.

The first of the Camp meetings takes place tomorrow evening at 7pm so we still have another day to prepare.  I want to do some washing and finish cleaning the van.  I’ve dusted and done some cleaning but want to wash the floor yet, and to get a bit more organised.  I can’t do too much at one time, I get really exhausted. 

It is just so lovely here!  We are already starting to feel relaxed, and once we’re a bit more organised we’ll be even more so.  The programme is quite full, with meetings at 7.30am, 10am, an afternoon workshop at 2pm and another meeting at 7pm.   Of course you don’t have to go to all of them but they are so good that you don’t want to miss any of them!

Friday 17^th   May 

We settled down about 9pm last night and still slept until 8am this morning.  We will have to set the alarm for 6am from now on.  It was a colder night but we still found our doona too warm, and had to change over to our minki blanket, adding the patchwork quilt when the temperature dropped in the early hours of the morning.

We went over and ‘claimed’ our seats in the big tent this morning.  Because the numbers grow each year and last year there really weren’t enough seats in the tent they were using, this year they have put up the ‘big tent’ that they use for ‘Big Camp’ meetings.  It’s a 7-pole tent, which seats around 1,000 people.  There are 700 campers here this year and of course more will come just for Sabbath.

Here are a couple of views of the meeting tent.    This is from a distance, which doesn’t give a real idea of the overall size but shows the lovely setting.

And here is a closer view.  

Here’s one view of the seating, which they have now set up.  All of the middle section has been ‘claimed’, and we are in the front row of the side section so that Nathan can see the big screen where the words of the songs will be displayed.  Usually for 'Big Camp', the seating is turned at 90 deg to this arrangement, with everyone facing the fixed stage at the far end of this photo, because they have to fit a lot more people in.

They are doing sound testing at the moment and they have a caravan up the back with a lot of the sound gear in it.  Neat arrangement I think.

The theme this year is ‘NearingHome’

And the backdrop is really lovely but I couldn’t get a good photo of the right side because of the spotlights. It has John 14:2 where Jesus says “In My Father’s house are many mansion.  If it were not so I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.”

The day is cooler than yesterday because there’s a wind with a bit of a bite to it, but it’s still a lovely day.

Peter found the most beautifully-coloured yellow feather today. We would love to know what kind of bird it came from –  or even whether it is a natural bird feather at all.  That's been a big discussion among our group this afternoon.   It’s about 5 inches long and is a lovely vibrant yellow.  The photo doesn’t do it justice at all.

This evening's meeting was the true start to camp.  On the stage is a group of musicians forming a volunteer band with a piano, keyboard, violins, 3 trumpets, a tuba, clarinets, another kind of brass instrument that I couldn't really see properly, a guitar - and probably some more that I couldn't make out too.  There was some joking about what they should call themselves, with one suggestion being the 'Old Puffers' which of course brought a big laugh.  The meeting starting with them playing a selection of the good old favourite hymns, while a power point of highlights from previous Grey Nomads Camps was shown on the screen.  Then there was singing of some old favourites as well, followed by a few surprise 'giveaways'.  Three seats had 'tickets' attached to them, then the oldest person was found: that turned out to be a 94 year old man.  There are also several 93 year olds here (Adventists tend to be long-lived).  Next was to find out the youngest person here: two 40 year olds stood up, but of course Nathan won that one being only 24.  Well, he does qualify as a Grey Nomad, he had two grey hairs after all!

They asked for a show of hands to see where people came from: one of the 40 year olds is a lady from the Caribbean.  Then there was even a group from New Zealand and people from every state and territory in Australia - not a bad effort, considering Western Australia is 4,000 kilometres away and to get from Tasmania involves loading your caravan onto the ship and travelling over Bass Strait - a not inexpensive thing to do as we found out when investigating a holiday in Tassie.  So there are people who have travelled from Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory to be here.  That just shows how popular this camp is becoming.

And our Guest Speaker, Pastor Melvyn Hayden, and his wife Denise, came over from Washington DC to be with us.  He is a really dynamic speaker and delivered a wonderful message that was a true inspiration.  I really look forward to hearing more from him each day.

Nostalgia on the move

As we were driving in the dark yesterday I couldn't help comparing the smooth, wide lanes of that part of the Pacific Highway with the Pacific Highway of my childhood.  When I was 10 my family embarked on a 6 week trip to Bundaberg, Queensland.  One of my cousins and her family lived there, as did a dear friend of my mother's and her family.  'Crazy!' said people at home - 'going to Queensland at Christmas is madness!  The heat, the humidity, will be awful!'  Well the laugh was on them - Sydney suffered a heat wave with extremely hot, humid days for weeks on end that year and in Bundaberg we were enjoying a dry heat with days over 100 deg F that didn't feel anything near that temperature because the heat was dry.

The highway north at that time was just two lanes, only two thirds the width of two of the lanes of the present one.  Trees grew right to the very edge of the lanes - there were no verges like today.  The surface wasn't smooth like today, either.  The bitumen had gravel in it like today's but unlike today's you felt that gravel!

We were driving in our little Ford Anglia, towing a trailer with our canvas tent and all our camping gear.  I remember sitting in the back seat, wrapped in a blanket (no heater in the car) looking out at the gum trees as they went by in the darkness. They were so close and so friendly somehow - I felt as though they were nodding at me fondly as we passed.

Nowadays it is a 4-lane divided road, with extra lanes in parts.  The trees have been pushed back from the sides or bulldozed during roadworks and new species planted.  The extensive improvements mean that the road is smooth as silk.  Cars and trucks go ever faster.  And still accidents occur because of human stupidity: drink driving, fatigue, speed.

I didn't have a wonderful night's sleep but felt better this morning.  Peter slept well which was the main thing.  We left at 8.45.  Yesterday we did 198 kms, so have a fair way to go today.  It is a sunny day, around 13 deg when we left with blue skies and not a great deal of traffic.

We passed two wheelchair bikes going the opposite way, with a support vehicle following behind.  I wonder whether they are fund-raising or training for an event?

As we crossed the bridge over the Karuah River, the water below sparkled so brightly it was positivly dazzling.  Our friends Richard and Marilyn spent the night at Taree, so they are a good hour ahead of us or a bit more - at 8.55 it was 113 still to go to Taree so we probably won't catch up with them on the road.  We have asked to be put beside them at Camp.  We have other friends going too, who have also asked to be camped beside so we should be in a group.

Around 10.30am a bird of prey was circling low, about level with the car, beside the road.  It was so close that I could make out the cream head, the sharp eye and the curved beak.   It had brown feathers on the rest of its body and was quite large.  I have to look it up.  At first I thought it might have been a wedge-tailed eagle but they don't have the cream head and are even larger.

Rick and Marilyn phoned and asked whether we'd like to stop at Kew, a little village of 5-600, so we could catch up.  We were almost right behind them as we pulled off the highway because Rick had slowed down to 90kph and we were travelling at 100kph.  We had also left earlier this morning than they did.  Peter was due a break, and we were glad to stop.  We are firm believers in 'Rest, revive, survive' and stop around every two hours.

Iris, our GPS, became most upset when we took the turnoff - she really dislikes her instructions being ignored :)  She's a real bossy boots.  After a nice hot chocolate and a slice of cake we drove on a further 2 kilometres to Kendall, just to have a look.  Marilyn used to work for a geographic society that had geography teachers as members so hearing that a former Minister for Education had retired to Kendall she had been curious for a long time what it was like.  And of course as a retired school teacher I was interested as well, so we had a look.  It is a very small place and two 4 wheel drive cars towing caravans caused a certain amount of interest among the few people who were around.  There are a mixture of houses and buildings, some old, some new, some nice and some nondescript.  Several had lovely views over the river - not sure which river, there was no name.

We were back on the highway by 12, once again heading north with just 110 kilometres to go. The temperature was now a pleasant 19 degC though it felt warmer in the car.  I would have been more comfortable in a tee-shirt.

Soon we were in wine-growing country, with signs indicating turn-offs for various wineries popping up but mostly the highway was bordered by bushland - my favourite kind of scenery to pass through whilst driving.  It feels timeless somehow in spite of the intrusion of signs and such - not to mention that ribbon of asphalt!

At Kempsey our GPS Iris became totally lost and confused.  the Kemsey bypass has been  completed and she didn't know where we were, repeatedly urging us to do a u-turn and get back on the old route. I'm sure a note of frustration set in as we kept ignoring her pleas ;)  I'm not sure why Peter even hed the GPS on because he knows the way, except that it tells him the number of kilometres to go.  And what can I say - boys and their toys!

By the time she'd worked out where we were as we rejoined the old road (having cut out a considerable distance with the new bypass) I was surprised that poor Iris hadn't fried her circuits.

We arrived at Stuarts Point at 1.24, and were soon registered and parked in our site.  Leona and Ian were already there and set up and we are all in a row.  This year there are over 700 campers registered - 200 more than last year.  So I can understand why registration is open from 1pm today when Camp doesn't start until Friday evening.  It will be lovely to have this time to set up and get organized, relax and socialize.

It is so peaceful here, all we can hear is bird song in the trees - mainly rainbow lorikeets which are one of my favourite birds.  I will take more photos over the next few days but in the meantime here is a photo I've shown before of some lorikeets in our back garden, in the grevillea bush near our kitchen.

Flocks of forty or so birds fly overhead regularly at home, and lots are in the trees at the front and over the road but we have a pair and their offspring that claim the grevillea as their own and who have territorial squabbles with the wattle birds over it.

Here at Camp quite large flocks fly from the trees at different times of day too, and we hear them in the trees all the time but the trees are so numerous and so tall that it is hard to see them and to tell what kind of birds they are.

Interesting name today: Kundabung. It has a population of around 5-600 and it's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning 'wild apples'.

distance from home: 497.5 kms.

It's that time of year again!

Tuesday, 14th May.
Wow, the year has flown by.   And once again we are setting off for Grey Nomads Camp at Stuarts Point on the north coast of New South Wales.  There's been considerable doubt as to whether I'd be well enough to go this year.  Having COPD means that I get bronchitis easily and it turns into pneumonia very quickly but this time the bronchitis stayed just bronchitis and I am on the mend, though still very limited in what I can do and still coughing badly.

If ever I wondered whether I do much in the way of preparation to go away, this time proved that I surely do.  I did of course do as much as I could over the last week or so: mainly packing away my maxi mini mess, deciding what clothes to take and making sure that the menfolk had enough of the right clothes to take too.  But poor Peter was left the task of loading everything into the caravan.  My brother has been staying in the van for a few weeks too, and we didn't have access to it to pack until this morning so that didn't help.  But usually of course I can do a lot more, plus clean the house.  This time I had to leave the house as it is - grubby because I've been out of action first with my back then with bronchitis.

We wanted to leave by midday.  Peter thought we might leave by three since it was taking so long to pack.  We ended up leaving at 5.30pm - that's probably close to a record for us.  Of course leaving so late it was getting dark.  Sunset is around 5pm and we have short twilights here in Sydney.

By a bit before 7pm we had braved the peak hour traffic through to the motorway heading north from Sydney and travelled to Wyong, where we stopped for a cooked meal.  We were there for an hour because they only did two meals instead of three and had to cook Peter's.

So it was close to 8pm when we pulled out of the service centre.  All went well for the next 3/4 hour - until Peter missed the turnoff for Taree.  That wouldn't have been an issue in itself except that night roadworks were happening and by the time we found a place several kilometres up the road where we could do a u-turn, we were stuck in head-to-tail traffic, zooming along at a whole 5 kilometres- when we were moving at all!

So after a wasted half hour we were finally back on track.

At least we were only 8 kilometres from Raymond Terrace.  Peter wanted to stop at a truck and car stop the other side, where we have stayed several times before.  I was concerned for him because it has been a long day so I was happy to stop there despite there being no power or drinking water.  Our van has 12 volt lights and we carry bottles of water.  The stove works on gas and the fridge works on either gas or electricity so we were fine.  I didn't take a photo this year so have used the one I took with my phone from last year again.  This upper area has space for about 50 b-doubles, buses and caravans and there is a smaller space below on a lower level for cars.  There are toilets but the water isn't for drinking.

Mind you, we did pass several caravan parks!  And I do miss my hot shower at night when we park where we can't connect to running water.  But we slept well.

Last day of our lovely break

We woke to a clear blue sky and bright sunshine.  It started off very cool (8degC) but warmed up to a lovely 17deg.  Daylight saving ended at 2am this morning so we are still adjusting to the change in time and slept in.  We had a lazy breakfast, trying to persuade Nathan that quite possibly buying an antique from the antique shop might be a rather expensive souvenir of our holiday.  Eventually he decided to have a look for something else so he and Peter went off to Blackheath and Nathan came back with a book of Australian native animals, birds and reptiles.  A much better option, I think :)

We had a long walk through the caravan park and down to a little creek running along the bottom.  It is lined with beautiful tree ferns of all sizes.

After that we wandered over to the park across the road.  There were some very pretty trees with autumn foliage there, some of them small

And some of them very large.

It was really nice sitting in the sun in the park too.  And in one section  there was a group of pretty ferns, about 2 ft high and about 3ft across.  They were really nice.

As we were leaving we saw that a bottlebrush tree actually had second flush of blooms.  Smaller than the first flush but a bright splash of colour.

I had expected that we'd see more autumn colour than we have.  In fact the best we've seen has been in the caravan park and the park across the road.  As we were walking back to the caravan we noticed that some of the trees that we photographed yesterday have actually improved their colour in the last 24 hours.

We had our lunch and sat in our chairs outside the caravan, intending to go and visit the gardens later on.  But it was so nice sitting there enjoying the sun that we felt too lazy to go anywhere.  Nathan was reading his new book, Peter was looking at his book of Australian birds and I was doing some stitching.  We ended up just staying there enjoying the sun.

Later in the afternoon the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos returned as they do every afternoon.  They are really noisy as they come in to the trees, squawking and screeching.  Peter went off and took some photos and they were really active, doing acrobatics in the trees.

Today is our last day here.  Check out time is the usual 10am.  Peter has already closed up the awning and packed away the chairs.  Tonight I did some more mini flowers for the Fairfield.  I ended up painting some that were white but I wanted to make them pink, so I've left them to dry overnight before I pack them away in the morning.  Apart  from that there won't be a great deal to pack up.

We've had a lovely, relaxing time.  It's been a great way to celebrate.  Low key and quiet, but that suits us at the moment.  We'll be sorry to have to leave this lovely place.  But it won't be too long until we go away again.  Grey Nomads Camp is 17th May this year and we are looking forward to that very much.
Blessings,
Sandra