30 November 2008 - Wilsons Pronomitary

21st November

Set off early and drove towards Wilson promontory, it was at least 250kms away so we had a good few hours driving to do. On the way we stopped at a small town to fill up on petrol and have a cuppa in the local bakery café. We were making a bit of a habit stopping at a café everyday but it brakes our days up and sometimes we need it to get out of the rain!!

We got the Wilson’s promontory which was beautiful, it is like a peninsular of 30kms that juts out into the ocean, it is the most southerly point of Australia. We weren’t really too sure if we would be staying the night there, when we enquired it was actually very cheap to camp so that’s what we did.

We found a lovely spot near to the beach and after setting up Sarah’s tent we went down onto the sand for a walk. There were a few surfers out having lessons so we watched them for a while before heading to the furthest end where we sat on a huge boulder and red our books. We must have sat there for an hour or so before the tide came close and we had to head back. Walking on the grass covered sand dune was a wombat, we had seen lots of warning signs and sure enough here we saw one, we watched it for a while and could make out a baby in its pouch, wombats are marsupials like koalas and roo’s so they also carry their young ( called a joey) in a pouch!

As we got back to the van it got very windy and black clouds started to fill the sky, it looked like we may be in for a rough night so we decided to get the tarpuline up before the rain started. This turned out to be a right mission as the wind was so strong it was a job to hold the tarpaulin in place. We finally prevailed although it must have taken us a good 20-30 mins! We got dinner on the go and it ended up going wrong, it looked like baby food but that was pretty much all we had so we had to make do. The rain really started pelting down after that and didn’t stop for the rest of the evening so in the end we just left the washing up for the morning. Sarah did a tent inspection and found 3 leaks so we moved her tent under the tarpaulin, it made it hard for us to get in and out the van but we were all out of other ideas!!

We decided to get into bed, it was freezing outside now and it was 9pm so there was no point staying out in the cold and wet. Even in the van the wind was blowing us about, the tarpaulin was acting like a parachute at times so that pulled on the van some more, after a while there was an almighty crash, we looked out the window and the tarpaulin had broken due to the weight of the rain that had pooled on the top. Luckily it had missed Sarah’s tent and it was up enough to keep here dry for the rest of the night so we just left it.

That night was very cold, even Dan and I struggled to stay warm inside the van, we all decided that we would try to find Sarah a hostel to stay in over the next few days as according to the weather man the rain and storms aren’t going to stop!!