Christmas Day at Ned's Camp

Previously I made mention of the German tourists whom decided that a cigarette paper thickness was all the room required between adjacent campsites, and how I had warned them of my loud snoring. - well, the first thing that I noticed upon the rising of the Sun on Christmas Day, was that they had moved during the night. Neither Sue nor I heard the vehicle start, so we can only assume that they pushed the car out and across the car park to the far side - very considerate of them. So began Christmas on the beach at Ned's Camp.

Pancakes with strawberries and cream, freshly brewed coffee, beautiful views and one again, no sea breeze, started the day off perfectly. There was no exchange of gifts - what could people that have everything they need in life possibly give each other for Christmas? Instead we sat and enjoyed the murmuring banter of the other campers as we discussed our plans for when we moved on. We had decided to give Warroora (pronounced "Worra") a second chance.

The only time we had visited Warroora previously, the wind howled so strongly that I had to tie the camper top (we had a Kimberley Kamper in those days) to the car to stop it from closing itself! Our dinghy, which used to lay over on its side so that the Kamper could open, was half filled with windswept sand - requiring me to shovel it out before we could swing it back over onto the roof. We spent a terrible night cooped up inside the Kamper, sheltering from the wind, eating cold baked beans out of the can because it was too windy to use the stove outside. That is why I say that we were giving Warroora a second chance. We were right in the middle of the west coast sea breeze season, which did not fill us with a great deal of confidence, but the lack of sea breeze at Ned's camp was promising.

We determined to head off on Boxing Day, meaning that we will have spent five days at Ned's Camp. This would leave us with about three days of water left in the tanks, so we planned on a three day stay at Warroora before heading into Carnarvon to top up the tanks. Planning done, we made our way to the beach for an early morning swim.

The water was chrystal clear and comfortably cool, with groups of like-minded people dotted along the shoreline in both directions also enjoying a tranquil Christmas swim. My sore back enjoyed the weightlessness of being immersed up to my neck in the briny. I was still taking an anti-inflammatory pill after breakfast each day and it was effective in reducing the pain but was clearly not fixing the problem. I had no thoughts of casting a fishing line because of the pain it caused.

After the swim Sue grabbed her electronic book and I did some more housekeeping on the van. The lack of sea breeze was accompanied by constantly overcast conditions, when combined with the fact that two of the four solar panels were constantly shaded by the trees, meant that we were going further into deficit with our power usage each day. I read the meter and we we down to 53% capacity, something that would have had me well and truly rationing power with the old batteries, but now had me only mildly concerned. If we could see out one more day we could charge the batteries with the car while travelling to Warroora.

The overcast skies also keep the temperature down, albeit at the expense of increased humidity. These unusual conditions (for this time of the year) seemed to be taking there toll on the wildlife and we were blessed with the company of a Nankeen Kestrel whom decided to have a siesta on the roof of our car. The seemingly distressed bird allowed me to approach within a metre to take photographs, before eventually flying off after an hour of cooling down.

This was one of the few times that the Kestrel opened its eyes.



You can see how closely I was able to approach this bird.

 Lunch was the Spangled Emperor that we had thawed out previously. Again, lightly dusted in seasoned flour and fried on the BBQ was the order of the day. The last of our fresh salad was used as a side-dish and the champagne (Bella) came out to wash it down. Delicious! One cannot eat and drink fine food and beverages such as this without taking a Nanna Nap to aid digestion and this was made all the more easy by the moderate weather conditions.

I was awoken from my slumber by the arrival of my new friend Paul. He and Trevor were back to murder some more fish, even on Christmas day! I helped them launch the dinghy and wished them well as they set off to Paul's secret spot to use his secret technique to bring in more Emperor. Secretly I was actually wishing that they weren't too successful, my reasoning being that they had already pulled their fair share of fish from the sea. As it transpired they only got a single fish on the day, which then made me feel guilty for putting the "mockers" on them.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent chatting with other campers, swimming and doing nothing (something that I am becoming increasingly adept at doing.) We were both suffering from the normal Christmas Day problem of having eaten excessively and so it was that a light snack was all that we were able to partake of for supper.

The "black hole" effect of having no mobile phone reception meant no communication with family or friends and this was probably the only negative for the day. As the Sun approached the horizon I began to pack things away in preparation for our move further south to Warroora. All that was left to do in the morning was to hook up the van and head off.