Morven to Soggy Mitchell

The town’s name is Mitchell, but the heavy rain this afternoon means it’s very soggy, hence the name.

We both had a difficult night, with lots of coughing. I didn’t feel confident that we could drive very far, and when we reached Mitchell at about midday, I suggested we stay here and have a restful afternoon. We had lunch at a cafe, then did some shopping. As we took the shopping back to the Winnie the heaven’s opened, with wind, rain and hail.

We waited until the rain eased, then drove to the Neil Turner Weir, where RV’s can park overnight. As usual when there is free camping there were lots of caravans and motorhomes already here.

As the afternoon wore on, with the rain continuting, we realised that we had made a good decision to stop driving for the day. I had bought some chicken, and am cooking it in our oven with some vegetables. This has the benefit of keeping the van quite warm. Usually I only cook meat when we have electricity, so it’s good to have the gas oven available.

As we are on the edge of town we have internet and TV, though I am slightly worried about having enough power as there would not have been a lot of solar power generated during the afternoon. I will keep and eye on the batteries as it is considered best to keep them at above 70% charge.

We should have this written on the back of our van! The owner of this van hasn’t raised the roof, perhaps it isn’t waterproof.

Speaking of being waterproof, when we arrived at our site, we found the kitchen mat was very wet, and we worried that we had a leaking hatch or something. When we put the slide out, we found there was water on the lino, so somehow water must have come into the van that way. I must make sure we close it tight tomorrow when we leave. The water didn’t do any obvious harm and I sort of washed the floor with the cloth I was using to mop it up, getting rid of fluff and stuff.

Our casserole should be ready at 7.00 p.m. and we hope we have a bit better night tonight.