Page 190 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien 2

We start enjoying ourselves; the camp is fast becoming a closely knit community. The danger becomes an adventure
now. The managers, despite losing their home, do their utmost best in order to make our stay a pleasant one.
Tonight Sabine und Hansi, two Austrians, will be our dinner guests.

Day 6, December 23 2010
Hurrah, the water has sufficiently receded, that we manage to drive over a little sandy track to a major road and
prudently proceed to Carnarvon. It is high time that we do some shopping for the festive holidays, After all: tomorrow
is Christmas Eve! It feels great to be out again, almost as if we had been incarcerated for a week, even though
under very nice circumstances. We enter Wooly’s the “Fresh Food People” but there is no fresh food, not even
much frozen items. Empty shelves as far as we can see. When I ask the sales staff if and when they will receive
fresh produce, they only shrug and don’t know. It is no use to ask the dispatcher in Perth, because they just put
goods at the airport and every plane takes as much as it can carry next to the passenger. It is always a surprise of
what they get, when staff goes out to the Airport in Carnarvon to get these goods. Since there is no refrigeration on
the passenger planes, there is no fresh food. It reminds me of the bad old days in Russia and the East block, when
people queued every morning in order to buy whatever was on offer for the day, not whatever they needed.

Our Troopy got serviced despite the manager of the Toyota Garage in Carnarvon. This guy had such a bad day, that
he exhausted nearly all my patience. At 7.30 in the morning he was in such a foul mood, that he tore up the order
form before I was able to patiently persuade him to rewrite the form and get the work done. One could almost be led
to believe, that customers are a noxious pest. Of course, at the end he ripped us off royally. Not an experience I
would suggest anyone in or around Carnarvon to have. I guess he needs to restring his nerves.

For an hour in the afternoon the gate to the waterworks next to the caravan park is opened, so that the large mobile
homes and caravans can drive out to a safe road. The next morning the road leading to the north should be open for
vehicles wanting to leave Carnarvon. Still nobody can come back in and the road south is blocked for an undefined
time. I am getting very tired and exhausted. The excitement and action plus the early morning choppers start taking
their toll.

Day 7, December 24, 2010
Most of our new friends have left Carnarvon because they have a plane to catch out of Perth sometime beginning
of January. The Southbound highway will be closed for some undefined time and they have to go the long way round
back up north and then down south on the inland highway. 2’200 km instead of approx. 900 km. It will be very hot in
the interior, so they all left very early in the morning. For a few moments, it feels a bit lonely, but then we meet up with
Beth and Val who we met on a campground before we got evacuated from there. They each drive a motor home
plus they own a little car to get around in. They have asked me to drive the car up to Capricorn caravan Park when
we evacuated, they would follow shortly. However, they never showed up. There I was with a car, no telephone
number for its owner and no idea where they were.

I got a little worried and hoped that they did not end up in some sort of a ditch. After some research I managed to get
their telephone numbers and sent them a text: “This is your car speaking, I am high and dry!” It turned out, that Val
and Beth were not anymore hindered by the police to drive up the road and had been sent to the Civic Centre in
town, where they stayed during the floods. Luckily the hastily piled up earth wall across the road held the water
back, otherwise the centre would have been under water. We will have Boxing Day lunch together at our place.

A few trucks made it the long way round from Perth; we have some fresh veggies in the stores. They drove 22
instead of 8 hours in order to deliver some fresh food to us. The fishing corporation decided to give two large
containers of freshly caught and cooked crabs away, because they cannot deliver them to the buyers. Yummie!

Until we regain power it will be a hot Christmas. Another tropical storm is threatening the North West Coast. No one
knows, how far down that one will come. We will see.

Day 8, December 25, 2010, Christmas day
While we are all sitting together under a shady tree, technicians worked overtime and gave us all a lovely Christmas
present. They restored our power!!! Yeahhhh

PS: No sooner have the floods receded in the West, tropical storms of epic dimensions have swamped the East. 20