A Bird in the Patrol is Worth Two in the Hand

---

DAY 421

Thud! I heard a very heavy raindrop, in my sleep, land on the canvas above us, thud, thud and probably before the fourth one hit I was already out of bed, “don’t rush!” Andy shouted as he too was getting out of bed, concerned that if I went to quickly that I would completely miss the stepladder and land in a heap at the bottom of the bed.

“Why the rush?” I can hear you all asking, well before we went to bed last night, we left everything outside, including the television (don’t ask!!) and I was going to put the windows up on the Patrol but Andy said “Don’t worry, it’s not going to rain!”

Famous last words as we are now both clambering out of bed as quickly as we could to retrieve the television set and put the windows up on the Patrol, we hear Jason open the zip on his tent, Andy shouts “don’t worry Jason we have the TV!” “Right o mate!” Jason disappears back inside.

I look at my watch it is only 5.30 in the morning, but the rain is not forgiving as it hurls down in stair rods, we breath a sigh of relief at our brief rescue mission and try to get back to sleep, not long after I hear the rumblings of thunder in the distance, I hope that it does not last, but the next thing I remember it is 6.30 the light is up and it now feels much cooler, a bit of a relief.

I manage to stay in bed until 7.45 then give in as I can hear a cup of tea calling me, I am first up, Kristy is not too long afterwards, we both wander round pouring the rain water out of everything including the chairs! We should have been smarter and moved the chairs as well but I really could not be bothered. It seems that quite a bit of rain has fallen.

I put the billy on for a cup of tea, Andy and Jason were still in bed, I shouted to Andy that his tea was ready, then Kristy and I vanished to the rivers edge, where we could see some fish jumping, Kristy grabbed a fishing rod from the back of Jason’s Ute, she attached a lure (for those that don’t fish it is a brightly coloured thing that spins in the water that has a hook on it) with a quick flip the line hurtled out towards where the fish were and we waited with abated breath.

Well, we waited and waited, a few times Kristy put the line in, reeled it in and all there was hanging on the hook was weed. While Kristy was bobbing the line in and out of the water a fish leapt out, Kristy leapt and so did I! However when Kristy leapt she uttered a few words that I could not possibly print, we both fell around in hysterics, Kristy saying, “I don’t think I will make a good fisherman!”

I could see that Andy was up and about, still no Jason, Andy wandered up to join us. We all commented on how high the river was this morning, the rain during the night must have been really heavy, some of the dry riverbed areas were completely submerged.

A while later we headed back for breakfast, Jason still had not appeared he shouted from the tent “I am going to ignore you for a while longer”, no problem but I am cooking breakfast.

A waft of bacon seems to get Jason out of his tent, I have pancakes on the go, albeit the same breakfast as yesterday but hey we don’t have bacon everyday. Jason revealed that he hoped that he had not woken us up in the night as he was rather unwell. I did not say but I did hear someone wandering around during the night, I also heard the dulcet tones of a shovel.

I don’t think it was dinner that upset him, I think it was just a combination of too much sun while we were in the river, the alcohol and not much water so dehydration played a big factor in this. I must reiterate though, yesterday afternoon was hot!

Because of the rain we decided that we would leave the tents up and pack up the rest of our gear and allow the canvas to dry out during the day, it was definitely going to be hot and hopefully a bit of wind would help the drying process.

Everything was soon packed away, we made sure that every single scrap of rubbish was picked up, although we like to do this anyway, it is really not fair to leave any rubbish lying around on someone else’s property, and besides if everyone did this then Nancy may not allow people in the future to camp here and that would be such a shame.

Andy and I head back to Woodstock and Jason heads back to Merriville, Andy and I have a bit of a bet with each other on how much rain fell overnight and if Woodstock had any, he suggested 12millimetres I thought I would go much higher and went for 30 millimetres, as soon as Helen opens the door she tells us that it was in fact 12 millimetres, so Andy relishes in a few moments of victory. Thanking me for putting some silver outside for the New Year as it clearly made it rain for Woodstock and all the other local farmers.

We find that Patsy, Helen’s friend has already left for Sydney so things are relatively quiet at the moment and it remained a fairly quiet day, but later on Andy helped Robert and Helen do a bit of work on the new dog yards, but not long after we headed back to Tumbelong, Nancy’s place to pack up the trailer and bring it back to Woodstock.

Just before we jumped in the Patrol Andy saw a little bird in there, we had left the windows and doors open as it was so hot, but this little bird decided to fly in and have a look around before flying out of the rear doors, I hope that it has not left any little packages anywhere for us.

Down at the riverbank we packed up Nancy appeared for a chat, she wondered why we had left the tents and thought it was a pity that we packed up and perhaps should have stayed longer, we could have really, this is such a beautiful place to be. We had hoped to try some fishing; earlier Jason donated a fishing rod to us as Andy expressed an interest in trying it, although I won’t be cooking and let alone gutting it, forget that! However Andy does say that he would be happy to catch something and throw it back in, we will see. It is too late really to fish and we need to get back to Woodstock otherwise we will be holding up dinner.

When we get back the outside table is laid and dinner is served straight away, oops, we have delayed everyone. Dinner was delicious again, downed with a glass or two of Australia’s finest wine, before we had finished Bree and James arrived back from Melbourne, they are staying tonight before heading back to Canberra tomorrow.

After dinner I was washing up a few of the larger items that would not fit in the dishwasher and my back started itching, it did not bother me at first then other parts of my back started itching, I then had the same itch on both my arms, eventually I noticed a rather large mosquito had landed on my left arm, this thing was not going to take flight too easily as it already had a fair amount of me so it was sitting pretty when I whacked it. It did not even squelch, but this thing was probably the largest mozzie I have ever seen!

We sat until just after midnight watching Jaws on TV, gosh the movie now seems so dated, and Jaws is nowhere near as scary as it used to be, so that was all for our day and we hope to catch you all tomorrow.

Yet another late night, goodnight.

KJ. XXX

---

Photos

Murrumbidgee River
Higher than the day before.

Supervising
Trixie and Jack supervise the building of the new dog yards, otherwise named the Woostock Hilton

Jack wants a tummy rub
Doesn't see the camera and wants a tummy rub from Andy, if Jack sees me with the camera he shys away, it brings back bad memories for him.

New Dog Yards
Looking good, I hope that the dogs like their new home.