This is quite a change to my normal assessment of having a hot summer. We are spending more time at the beach and it is really making a difference. Of course, we have excellent air conditioning at home, but with the heat making it difficult to go outside we can still find it difficult. Last summer wasn’t particularly hot and it has taken until February for things to heat up this year.

The pink glow behind the van is an indicator of the humidity in the air. It was a little uncomfortable for sleeping, despite the wind, until the early morning.

This week is quite busy for Stephen with rehearsals for a WASO concert from Tuesday onwards. The choir is not singing for the whole concert, and rehearsals aren’t very long, but still involve going out each night. Fortunately it is all happening at the Concert Hall which is readily accessible by bus. The forecast is for temperatures in the high thirties for the next few days.

Despite the busyness, we decided to spend last night at a different beach location which we checked out when we went to Mullaloo Beach. I picked up the Winnie in the morning and in the afternoon we brought it up on the driveway to fill the water tank and load our stuff. When I took the Subaru to the caravan park I went to the service station for petrol and after picking up the Winnie refuelled her as well.

We were heading up the freeway at around 5.00 p.m. and although there was a lot of traffic the journey was fairly stress free. On arrival we found a good spot to park and had ‘happy hour’. A man approached us to ask about the motorhome experience and in the course of discussion said that the rangers were OK with people staying overnight and a woman had been staying in her truck camper for a few nights.

The discussion lasted a while, which meant we were hungry and didn’t get out for a walk until after our evening meal. My photos are quite grainy as there wasn’t much light.

We parked nose into the parking bay so that the westerly wind was on the opposite side to the fridge. This worked well until later in the evening when the easterly started. The flame blew out and our fridge, having just about reached 5 degrees had to sit for the rest of the night. Stephen and I have discussed getting a 12volt fridge and we have an appointment with Ken Peachy on Friday to get a quote. A 12/240v fridge can run on far less electricity than a three way fridge.

We can run our present fridge on 12v during the day when we have lots of sunshine, and a bit of driving charges the battery fully. But, we can’t leave it on 12v overnight or parked in shade because of the high draw. And it simply doesn’t work very well on any of it’s three power sources when the temperatures outside are high. We have a fridge thermometre which gives us the sad news when the temperature goes above 5 degrees. And there are those times when we have to remember to switch it off overnight in cold weather to prevent it from freezing our salads and drinks. We have battled the fridge for 2.5 years and we feel its enough!

It was still quite windy this morning, but we decided to head down for a swim anyway. The beach had a quick drop off just after entering the water and we were able to enjoy swimming whilst staying close to the shore.

We showered in the van giving the water heater about 10 minutes to take the edge off the cold water. A relaxed breakfast, then we packed up to head to Gwelup for the writing group. We were late, but it didn’t matter as the participants were well away with talking about their writing projects. It was very interesting and we feel inspired to keep on writing.

I was going to return the van and pick up the Subaru this afternoon, but it was hot and I felt tired. Stephen pointed out that I can drive past the caravan park on my way to visit Mum tomorrow to do the exchange.