We had quite a busy time yesterday morning, hence driving only about 80kms from Norseman. We did the usual things of dumping and filling up with water. We didn’t need all of the water from our two tokens, so the next person in line got an extra 30 litres.

Then off to the supermarket where we not only did some good shopping, but ran into two other Suncamper Sherwood E series vans. One was brand new, and you wouldn’t have expected us to head straight for it and try to open the door, but that’s what we did. Before blushingly returning to our own Sherwood.

Later, after we had put things away a bit we noticed the second Sherwood, this time rather more like ours, a bit older and with a large storage box on the back, such as we used to have on ours. We have to say that our box is quite a satisfactory size: it carries two small camping chairs, our levellers and chocks, an airer for washing and a folding table. Stephen has also put his spare shoes in there.

We wanted to have a go at cleaning up the outside. First of all we went to the BP station where Stephen checked our tyres, all good. They offered to let us use their water tap for $5, but suggested that it might be best to go back to the old Tourist Information Office (now a nice laundromat) as there was a tap there. Knowing it might take time and not wanting to hold up people wanting to check their tyres, as usual tyres and water were at the same point, we took his advice. Only to find that the tap had been completely closed off and there were no other taps available.

Stephen got out our bucket and got water from the hand basin of the nearby toilets and we started wiping down. Although using the dump point hose the night before had done a little bit of good (we didn’t have enough pressure), there was still a lot of cleaning to do. It took about an hour and we’re very pleased with the result. Although we still have a lot of mud underneath and on the wheels the rest of the van is basically fairly clean. The dirt washed off reasonably well. I kept taking my cloth back to the stainless steel basin in the Ladies to wash away the red dirt. By the way, I left it cleaner than it was due to careful washing down.

We couldn’t reach all the way up at the back and hope that we can borrow a ladder at some point to get at it.

We went to the Gateway Caravan Park and were able to get the gas bottle refilled, so really feel well prepared for the next phase of the trip. Although we arrived at our park up at about 2.00 p.m. and could have driven onwards after a short nap, I didn’t want to travel any further along.

I wanted to cook a chicken and vegetable curry, and that was accomplished. We also wanted to speak with Matt on Facetime, which meant setting up the Starlink. It takes time for it’s signal to stabilise and I wasn’t too hopeful due to all of the trees, but in fact it worked quite well and we had a nice chat with him. We called him before his teatime, but I think he felt we interrupted the best part of the day (meal prep), so we must try to time it for after tea next week. We did get some smiles, but mostly he just wanted to be off to join the party in the main living room.