So, why have we come to Wundowie? Partly because we had a very busy morning, ticking off some more items on our long list of preparations for going away in the van for about three months. This morning we had three gardeners come to prune a vine that belongs to our neighbour, but covers our shed. They also pruned our grapevines and a flowering tree that hangs over our driveway from another neighbour’s garden.
Our solar system was installed about three weeks ago and today we finally had Western Power come to install a new digital meter. This gives them control over our system and should keep them from having to pay us too much money in rebates. The technician was friendly and was somewhat helpful about the installation of the Powerpal device which will allow us to monitor our consumption over bluetooth, but only when we are home. Our solar system is connected to the web and we can check how it is going from anywhere.
In addition, I went to Homecraft for a sheet of plastic to use as a tablecloth on our outdoor table. They had lots of designs, but I chose one which was focussed on coffee culture. When I put it on the table I also appreciated that from a short distance it is quite subtle, some of the designs I saw in the shop were very loud.
As well, I loaded all of our food, my clothes and my technology stuff into the van. Stephen had filled the water tank yesterday, but then filled our drinking water containers this morning. With so much to do we hadn’t planned lunch, so I made cheese rolls in the van, all our food had been transferred, so that was our only option. We left home by about 1.30 p.m. We went to West Midland to a public weighbridge as Stephen was worried about all the stuff I had piled into the van. But, we were still underweight by about 80kgs, which is a pretty good score I think as I’ve brough everything I wanted to bring!
We look for campsites on Wikicamps and I had heard about the new campsite at Wundowie. It is laid out much like a caravan park, with a shared water tap, dump point, BBQ area and toilets nearby. It is about 70kms from home, which meant we didn’t have to stress about leaving so late and getting to a place to stay. We arrived at 3.00 p.m. in time for afternoon tea.
On our walk around checking everything out we wandered into the local IGA where I was able to get some tonic water so we can enjoy a gin and tonic before tea. We have lemons from our lemon tree for adding to the drinks. We have a couple of left over meals for our first couple of nights. One was cooked by Stephen and one by me so we feel we are both making a contribution.