Some of the good things that happened were that my wife's nephew couldn't make it and my Blue Heeler dog didn't fart in the tent. In addition to that, the scenery at Johanna Beach was spectacular and the drop toilet didn't harbour any redback spiders and were surprisingly clean. Although, I must admit that the provided toilet paper ran out on the second day. This was not from any over use by my wife or I. Fortunately, due to a very brief spell as a Boy Scout, I was prepared and had taken our own supply of toilet paper. I'm sure that you needed to know that.
The 2 metre surf at Johanna Beach was consistent for 3 days
The drive down to the beach was around 200 kilometers and took about two and a half hours. We only had one minor problem on the way. On a heavily forested country road, I took a bend and ran over a large, hard, black plastic object laying in the middle of the road, which promptly got jammed up under my car. The car was loaded with about a tonne of camping gear, food, water and dogs, which needed to all be removed to let me access my jack, to allow me to lift the car to remove the black plastic thingy. Several phone calls to to RACV for road side assistance were fruitless. Just as I was about to unload the car, a good samaritan drove past, saw I was in trouble and stopped to help. Fortunate, he had a jack in the back of his truck and we were on our way again a few minutes later. He was really nice guy and and I was very grateful for his help.
We finally arrived at our camp site and started to erect the tent. The tent was brand new, very large and had no manual showing how to put the bloody thing up. After about an hour of swearing, struggling and sweating (it was about 30C) we finally worked out how to do it.
We finally got the bloody tent sorted out!
By the time we finished with the tent, put up the gazebo and unloaded the car, we were tired, irritated and sunburned.
Our finished camp site.
To celebrate the completion of the herculean task, Kim and I took the dogs for a walk to check out the beach,
Me, the dogs and the beach.
And for a pleasant change, Kim and the same dogs. Same beach, too.
That night, we inflated our brand new queen sized air bed. We were really tired and looked forward to a comfortable night's sleep; only to discover that the bloody bed had a nasty habit of deflating over night, requiring us to get up and reinflate it every three hours! At this point, I would like to say that the tent, wtihout instructions, and the leaky airbed were purchased from Ray's Outdoors. Enough said. My bad.
The mongrel leaky air bed
Day two was basically a cool, relaxing, recovery day, spent walking reading eating and drinking a bottle or two of shiraz. The only downer was that our bloody great Labrador managed to drag her walking chain across my right shin, effectively removing a large portion of skin.
Me, book and dogs.
Now, let's get to night two. The overnight forecast was for a comfortable 17C. IT WENT DOWN TO AROUND 5C!! We absolutely froze all night and we had no warm clothes nor blankets. Thank God for shared body warmth. I guess you really didn't need to know that, either. Added to the cold was our ever deflating bed.
So, it was not surprising that, on the third day, we decided that enough was enough. We had to wait several hours for the heavy dew on the tent to dry. As soon as it did, we packed up and left.
We decided to take the long way home along The Great Ocean Road. Everyone should drive that road at least once in their lives. Amazing scenery at every turn, and there were lots and lots and lots and lots of turns. As I said, everyone should drive it at least once. Or better still, take a bus.
All in all, it wasn't Armageddon. It came close on a few occasions, but generally it was quite enjoyable. I realise that I've focused on the crappy bits and I make no apologies for that, as I find gushing, warm, fuzzy travelogues nauseating.
To my horror, Kim is already planning our next camping trip, sans deflating airbed. Wish me luck!
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