Roadtrip July 2021: Day 15 – Dalby > Home

Just by way of a disclaimer, it would probably be best that you prepare yourself for disappointment with today’s post. Much like the same disappointment that I am feeling at the prospect of going back to work in two more sleeps 🙁

There will be very little in the way of wisdom or inspiration tonight, and not many photos. Sorry.

Please feel free to send all complaints to mbw@…

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that the van only carries a small amount of water (maximum of 180 litres) and the hot water system only holds about 20 litres. So even when we are at a caravan park with power and water hookup, we are still limited by the relatively small HWS, and so showers still need to be quick (unless you enjoy a nice, hot shower that goes cold, in which case you can stay in for as long as you want).

So last night – the last night of our trip – I thought that I would treat myself to a nice, long, hot shower at the park amenities block. It was like a “full driveway service” kind of hot shower, where every nook and cranny got a good scrub and I came out feeling thoroughly … clean.

It always amuses me that these caravan parks constantly remind you of your moral responsibility to save water, yet they provide shower heads that throw out almost as much water as Niagara Falls.

I was gone for so long that I was worried that MBW might have sent out a search party, or at least reported me missing. But she was happy reading her book and neither missed my prolonged absence, nor noticed how clean and glowing I was when I got back.

It rained last night. Actually it started raining lightly at about the moment that we pulled up at our space in the Dalby Tourist Park, and the intensity of the rain continued to increase until – by the time I’d finished my shower and was ready to return to the van – it was coming down in almost biblical proportions.

We went to sleep last night to the sound of rain falling heavily on the roof of the van, and my last conscious thought was to wonder if we would have been better placed buying an ark (as in “Noah and the Ark …”) than a caravan.

I woke this morning at about 6.30am – goodness knows why – and in a final attempt to refuse to acknowledge that it was the end of our trip, I rolled over and went back to sleep for another two hours. Why? Because I could!

The first thing that was immediately obvious though was that it wasn’t raining. While I admit to having had some concerns (albeit very low level concerns) that we might be trapped in Dalby due to rising floodwaters, it turns out that our fears were completely unfounded.

I have a confession to make. I always try to take a photo of us pulling out of each caravan park, but this morning I completely forgot. The photos above are in a street just around the corner from the caravan park, on our way to coffee.

We mixed it up a little this morning and had breakfast at the van, but we stopped for coffee on the way home.

It’s always an interesting challenge trying to find somewhere to park with a van on the back. Many of these smaller townships are desperate for grey nomads to visit and spend all of their children’s inheritance, but they then make it really hard for you to actually park your rig within a reasonable distance of the local bakery, supermarket or coffee shop.

But we found just such a space, only about 50m from the Coffee Club where we had predetermined we were going for takeaway coffee this morning.

The girl (lady?) who served us had the annoying pre-disposition of referring to me in the plural, as in “What sort of coffee would we like?”

Sometimes when we are out driving and not actively engaged in conversation, I will randomly break the silence and ask MBW “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” It’s rarely that she is, BTW.

But at that very moment, standing in the Coffee Club in Dalby, I didn’t need to ask MBW if she was thinking what I was thinking … I KNEW she was. I could almost feel the oxygen get sucked out of the room and the air go cold.

Waitress: “What sort of coffee would we like?”

Me: “We would like a flat white please.”

Waitress looked at me like I’m a moron.

Me (for clarification): “Actually, I’d like a flat white. I’m not sure what you’d like.”

And then there was an uncomfortable silence like I’d just crossed a line between responsible and irresponsible behaviour (which, to be fair, I probably had) … and the waitress went off to make the coffee, and probably spit in it.

The trip home from Dalby was uneventful. Other than a super quick stop in Oakey – ironically for exactly the same reason that we stopped in Oakey on the first day of our trip heading out – it was a straight run home.

It was also interesting to notice how much greener everything is again.

The roads were flatter, wider, and faster than we have experienced more recently, and our return to suburbia brought with it the return of all the other drivers that are in an enormous hurry to get somewhere and not appreciating having a silly old fool in front of them towing a van and holding them up.

I haven’t missed that.

In fact I have appreciated the friendliness and courtesy shown by drivers out west, and even more ironically I’m already starting to miss the cheery waves from passing motorists.

We got home just before 1.00pm and started the process of unpacking, unloading, washing, cleaning and putting away.

Vital statistics for today were about 240km over 3.5 hours or so. For the total trip we travelled 3,173km, and we pulled Ernie for 2,381 of them.

All in all, I’d have to say that Elsie performed very well, Ernie was a delight to tow and exceeded our expectations, and I’d like to think that I behaved OK as well (although maybe not so well in the Coffee Club) … but I guess that I’ll find out for sure when MBW gives me my next performance review 🙂

Until next trip …

Ciao

PS: I’m already planning our next trip away in the van, even if it is just a weekend. MBW just doesn’t know it yet.