Australia

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This was the first time in a long while that we’d not been parked under a tree overnight, so we were woken as the sun beat down through the gaps in our curtains turning the van into an oven. Even with the aircon on it was steaming.

We’d read the guide book the previous night and had decided against spending a night at the Karijini National Park. That was only a few hours away. It was supposed to be beautiful but the sites there were all unpowered and the temperatures reach 40 degrees so I didn’t think it was a good idea. Instead we decided to go to another coastal town - Karratha - to spend a night there, as Ningaloo Reef, our real next destination, was about 7.5 hours drive away and we didn’t think it was a good idea to try to do it in one go without an overnight stop.

We started out on the short drive, taking it easy as we knew we’d be there by mid afternoon. There were more cars on this stretch of road which was comforting, and it was nice to know the distances between service stations was much less. The blurred trees in the distance seemed to be floating in pools of water and the road just melted out of sight before us.

Matt started dreaming of the pool at the campsite as we drove, while I focussed on my sore throat which had arrived the day before. As the time passed I became both hungry and exhausted - symptoms of the start of one of my colds.

When we finally arrived, I cooked us up some lunch and then I took an afternoon nap as I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. When I woke up it was late afternoon but the sun was still strong so we finally did go and seek out the pool.

We had the pool completely to ourselves so I sat on the steps enjoying the water on my legs while reading my book and enjoying an ice cold can of coke. Bliss. This was the first pool we’d found where the water really was cold. I was actually hesitant to get right in even though the temperature outside was probably 35 degrees. I bet the water was something silly like 28 degrees - warm by normal standards but compared to the air outside it felt freezing! When I got brave enough, I ditched my book and joined Matt in the water.

A few minutes later I was lying in the glare of the sun, drying off and reading my book. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 5.30pm on 10th Dec. I was laying outside sunbathing on a Wednesday in mid winter with no threat of having to do a proper days work until March. I gave myself some time to appreciate how amazing it felt to be in the middle of such a life changing experience. I wanted to store the moment up in my memory so that next December when I’m working hard, paying off the credit card bills and it’s raining and cold outside, I can come back here.

Matt got out of the pool and pointed out that it was too hot to stay there any longer so we went back to the cool airconditioning of our van. After a shower and some wine we had some dinner and then chilled out. Having no internet at the site it meant we could relax and take the whole evening off.

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