Star trail
It rained half the night and most of the morning. The rain turned the ground into a sticky mucky mess that caked to the bottom of your shoes and was really slippery. It was quite obvious that our plans to explore the park today were not going to happen as there was no way we were going to try to drive the car out. Even if we made it out, we would have wheels caked in mud and would probably destroy the dry-weather-road-only road in the process. Instead we had a relatively relaxing day….relatively, because it’s never really quiet with two small boys and their boundless energy being cooped up in a tent. Still, we spent a lot of time photographing birds, something that neither Andrew nor I have done for a long time.
In the afternoon the sun finally came out and the ground started to dry out. When the boys could no longer stand being cooped up the gumboots were put on and the bikes made an appearance. It wasn’t long, however, before the bike tyres were caked with mud and could not be walked, let alone ridden. Andrew also managed to fix the broken screw that had us worried we wouldn’t be able to get the camper up again if we did manage to get it down. It took a hammer, screwdriver and brute force!
We had sausages, steak and potatoes cooked over the fire for dinner, with boiled beans and carrots as well. The kids were excited about having a fire because we could have toasted marshmellows which they both adore. Well, I think it’s more that they love the marshmellows making an appearance, because they love to eat them, toasted or not!
Andrew had a go at making some star trail photographs last night, and just as we were packing up to go to bed we had a little frog jump through our campsite. I took a couple of photographs and probably blinded the poor thing with my flash. It was very pretty though.
I think our plan now is to stay one more day at Kinchenga National Park and see if our road south is open on Friday. If it isn’t then we will have to drive home the way we came, via Broken Hill.
Nathan couldn’t ride his bike….he could barely walk it for all the mud on his wheels
Toby’s mud encrusted bike tyre
Activities for children where it’s too muddy to ride or walk much
Sunset
Our frog visitor
Menindee to Pooncarie: closed. 🙁
