Half-lap Day 87: Cape Range National Park

The wind became very strong through the night, the strongest night time wind we’ve had on the trip. Tony and I were awake several times, and for a long time each occasion. Tony got up 3 times and went out to tie down things that were flapping or knocking, and to make sure that everything that might blow away was put away. The wind was slamming into the tent behind our head and slapping the canvas against the pole, I felt like it was a constant punching right behind me and it really wore me out. The kids each woke up, worried, once or twice, but we reassured them and they went back to sleep, and the tent and all our stuff survived the night without any damage or loss.

We eventually fell back to sleep at some point in the early morning, then I woke up around 6.30, as it was getting light. We had to be up and out early today to go on a glass-bottomed boat tour, so I decided not to go back to sleep despite feeling exhausted, and went up to the beach instead. I sat at the tables and drank my cup of tea and watched the waves and the whales, and the sun coming over the ranges and slowly lighting up the ocean. It was windy up there too and my travel mug got blown off the table, so I lost half of my cuppa.

Back to the tent and I woke the others up around 7.30 – we wanted to leave at 8 so we could call in and see our friends at Neds, they were packing up today and I wanted to see them before they left. The kids got out of bed fairly quickly, and had some breakfast. I made sure we had swimmers and snorkels and food for the day, so that we didn’t have to come back to camp until we were ready, and we were in the car by about 8.10, one of our quickest getaways on the trip.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, although still quite windy. The swell didn’t look very big though, so we hoped the wind wouldn’t impact on our boat tour. We got to Neds and walked up to see our friends, who were happy to see us. The girls played in the car and we caught up on our news of the past few days. They’d gone to Oyster Stacks on the day we did Turquoise Bay, so we’d missed them there. It was great to see them again and to share our plans for the next few days to see if we could catch up again somewhere soon. I mentioned that we couldn’t find Millie’s thongs (missing since Karajini – they could be in the car somewhere, or they could be with Tony’s missing hat and sunglasses…) and my friend said someone had given her a pair that they thought were her daughters (same pattern) but were a size too small – they just fit Millie, so she has thongs again, that look exactly the same as her friend’s thongs. Perfect.

We had about 15 minutes there, and then headed back to the car and drove to the Tantabiddi Boat Ramp. We got there just as the boat driver was reading off the names to make sure everyone had arrived. He introduced himself, Alec, the owner of the company, then we headed out along the jetty to the boat. He suggested that kids go in last as there is more room at that end of the boat, so we let everyone else get on and then we climbed in and sat on the bench seat to the left. The boat had a bench seat along either side, then 4 glass panels covering the entire middle section of the boat – so everyone was sitting facing the glass and could look down and see whatever was underneath. There was another family across from us – a young couple with a 2yo boy.

Sitting at the jetty, LiAM and the girls spotted a sting ray on the sand under the boat – a very exciting start to our tour. We motored out to the Tantabiddi Sanctuary Zone, a rectangular area of the reef where this tour operates. Alec told us about himself and his company and the boat, and made lots of jokes, he was fun to listen to. He then asked where each of us was from, and I was surprised that everyone on the boat was Australian. There was another couple from Melbourne, and he said ‘ooh, you’re not Collingwood supporters are you?’ – they said no, but when he got to us, Tony’s Collingwood hat gave him away. Alec offered to throw him overboard for a free snorkel…

On the way out to the reef some people saw a turtle – it was under our side of the boat and we missed it. Once we got to the reef, we saw amazing amounts of coral and fish, and it was great having a commentary about what each thing was, and interesting facts about behavior, diet, fragility and so on. We saw staghorn coral with blue tips – they looked like fairy lights (so we call it fairy light coral now) and large rock like coral formations which are called bommies. All the fish that we’d been seeing over the last few days were here, and we learnt more names. A very long, thin yellow fish that Millie and I had seen was a Spanish flutemouth, then LiAM spotted a silver one that looked the same – he pointed it out to Alec who said it was also a flutemouth. The most exciting thing was seeing a green turtle, feeding on the bottom. Alec turned the boat around 5 times so we could all see it properly. Very exciting and what I’d been hoping to see on this tour. We also saw a crayfish, and a large reef shark. I managed to get a fair few decent photos, as long as I remembered to hold the camera very close to the glass, and not on an angle. The 2 yo boy was so excited about seeing all the fish, it was very cool to listen to him talk about them.

Staghorn, or Fairy Light, coral

More coral

Green turtle

As we headed back to shore Alec handed out a DVD to each couple or family, filled with underwater photos of the reef that he has taken when diving or snorkeling here himself. I love going on tours when the operator is so passionate and knowledgeable about the area we are seeing, we always learn so much.

Once we were back at the car we looked at the map for a while to figure out what we wanted to do with the rest of our day (it was only 10.30 at this stage). We decided to drive all the way down to the southern end to check out Yardie Creek and the gorge there. We drove down then had a bit of a snack, then set out for the short walk along the creek. It was quite pretty, and we could see the gorge walls up ahead, the permanent water of the creek next to us, low scrubby land in either direction, and the ocean and reef behind us. The walk to the lookout at the start of the gorge was very quick and easy, so we continued up along the gorge walk, which was slightly more difficult but not hard. We saw some tenacious little yellow flowers growing out of holes in the rock, there was much less vegetation up here. We walked to the first lookout, where we could see down into the gorge. We watched some people float past on what I said were kayaks, but were actually stand up paddle boards. One guy was doing yoga on his, head stands and chimneys and so on – fairly impressive. The view was great in all directions from here, seeing the gorge, the ranges, the creek, the ocean and the land between the shore and the range. We could see whales way out in the distance. We walked back down, looking at the tough trees that live here – all bent over quite significantly, with very hardy looking branches and leaves.

Yardie Gorge

Yardie Creek

I wanted to snorkel at North Mandu (our original campsite) at high tide, which was just after 3pm today. We drove back up there, arriving a little after 1.30. Everyone was exhausted after our disruptive night’s sleep, and we considered just going back to the tent for a nap. The wind was still quite strong and was also wearing us out. We decided to stay though and just have a quick try at a snorkel once the water was high enough, then go back and rest. The kids and I wandered down to the beach, and walked towards the creek bed. We sat on the side of the creek bed and watched the ospreys – one was sitting on a dead branch on the other side of the creek bed, the other was in the nest. When seagulls started swooping the nest again, the osprey returned to the nest to help its mate scare them off. We didn’t ever go close to the nest so don’t know if they had eggs or chicks in there, but both adult birds kept looking down into the nest, so we’re sure that the nest was occupied by something. LiAM and Millie made rock cairns out of some of the flatter rocks, and we looked at shells and all the other things on the beach. There were huge white clam shells here, and more of the pink and brown shells, bits of coral, lots of driftwood, and rocks of a whole range of colours. Mainly white, pink and brown, and some were stripey. More whales were going past and I finally got some photos of one breaching – and all the kids saw it too, they have mainly only been breaching a long way out so it’s hard to show people, but these whales were just beyond the reef and one whale went up 4 times in a row, incredible to watch. We wandered back to Tony and sat at the table in the middle of the campground and had some lunch. By the time we’d finished eating it was after 2.30 and a good enough time to go in the water.

Humpback Whale

I went in first with LiAM and Millie. We went in pretty much from the end of the path to the beach, over the rocks and then into the deeper water (it’s not very deep here anyway). I wore my reef shoes so that it was easier to walk on the rocky shore and then over the rocks into the water. The swell was higher than we’d snorkeled in before, and the current seemed to be running strongly to the south, so I tried to go straight out then swim a bit north then head back in. We saw lots of fish again, and it was quite beautiful once we got out past the rocks. Millie coped well with the swell, and both kids could swim easily out there as long as they were holding my hand. Heading back in to shore I was really missing my flippers as I had to do all the work with my legs.

Tony decided to walk further north along the beach and go in at a less rocky part, then drift back down towards us. We walked along the beach near the shore, and saw a little reef shark darting in and out. He kept swimming quite close to us, then shooting back into the water. We followed him along the shore for ages, and later found out that juvenile reef sharks are very inquisitive and often come up to check people out and will swim near them along the shoreline. Tony swam way out and back towards the point, he saw a fair bit of coral and fish and said it was a good way to do it. At one point he was out pretty far and directly in the sunlight and I couldn’t see him – I was starting to wonder what I should do if he’d disappeared when I saw his orange snorkel come out of the shiny sun reflections – a big relief. I went and got my flippers and headed back in with LiAM. We were debating how far out we should walk before submerging, when Caitlin (still on the shore getting ready) shouted ‘Oh my God!’ and pointed in front of us – there was a turtle, right in front of us, only about 10m away. We both dived into the water and shot straight out there, Caitlin was not far behind us – but it had disappeared by the time we got there. We swam out beyond the rocks, and LiAM and I saw a blue-spotted ray hiding in under a ledge (my first ray of the trip, I was very excited). Back along the coral towards where Tony was on the shore, and saw lots more – every time we go out it’s as good as the last time, there’s so much going on under the water, fish eating and chasing each other and swimming around, interacting at times or going about their own business as if no one else was there. It was much easier swimming with my flippers, even though the blisters hurt a fair bit when I put them on. Once I was in the water though I didn’t notice them at all.

Millie came in for one more quick snorkel, then I took the others out again for a lap, and then we’d all had enough. Feeling very happy that we’d seen lots of cool things again, we headed back to the car. We stopped off at Bloodwood Creek on the way back to camp and walked up to the small lookout there. There was a bit of water in the creek although it wasn’t flowing, and there were a few birds around. We walked over to the beach and the kids and I decided to walk back, our beach was really not far. So Tony drove the car and the rest of us wandered back along the beach and rocks. The shoreline here was a series of low rocky outcrops, with small crescents of white sandy beaches in between. There were lotts more of the moss covered rocks on the edge of the larger rocks, interesting rockpools and holes in the rocks that we walked over, beautiful white sand with shells and fascinating driftwood in between each rocky part. The dunes to our left were covered in low bushes – great for LiAM to hide behind when he ran ahead, then jump out of as we came past.

Back at camp Tony was using up some leftovers for dinner – bread and eggs and bacon and maple syrup for some delicious French Toast. Caitlin and Millie went and talked to the guy with the guitar again, and they offered the girls a Harry Potter book that they didn’t want (The Deathly Hallows). Millie eagerly accepted it and then sat looking at the words while we ate our tea, she was very excited to have her own copy of a Harry Potter book. We finished eating then grabbed our drinks again and headed up to the tables for sunset. The sunset itself wasn’t as spectacular tonight, but the company was great once again. Caitlin took my camera up and asked the camp hosts about our nocturnal visitor from the night before – it was a Western Antichenus – I’ve always wanted to see one in the wild so was very pleased that it had chosen to visit us. We chatted with the camp hosts and some of the other couples, then with the other homeschooling family again. All the kids played on the beach again, having races and exploring the rocks until it was dark. The wind had died down by now and it was quite pleasant. We weren’t the only ones who had had a disturbed night, everyone was commenting on the wind and the lack of sleep that had resulted.

We gradually drifted back down to our sites and we got ready for bed. The stars were amazing again and I got my tripod out and took some photos – more successfully than last time I tried (at Devils Marbles) – I still need more practice though. Millie and I went to bed first and started reading her Harry Potter book, she asked me to show her where I was reading and she read the words that she knows (that’s how Caitlin started reading too, with the first Harry Potter book). We did that for a while, then the others came in and we read Inheritance for a short while before everyone crashed.

Half-lap Day 85: Cape Range National Park

I thought I’d be awake all night with the wind again, but actually slept pretty well. I was up early, not quite before sunrise but early enough to go to the beach and watch the ocean gradually get lighter. It was a beautiful spot. I saw lots more of the schools of silvery fish, and many whales out beyond the reef. Watching those huge waves break beyond the reef had me mesmerised – they are so big, and the extra spray created by the wind makes them look wild and exhilarating. Back at the tent the others were waking up and we had breakfast and played around our campsite, with trips back and forth to the beach to see the view.

Caitlin, LiAM and I went for a short snorkel, the water level was pretty low and it was tricky to get out beyond the rocks. There were lots of fish and some coral and it was quite beautiful – we thought it would be really great to come back in at high tide when the water was a bit deeper. LiAM wore my reef shoes as we only had 4 pairs, so I wore Tony’s, which meant we couldn’t all use our shoes at once. This probably wasn’t an issue cos some of us could use flippers, but we decided it would be easiest if everyone had their own reef shoes.

Tony was also finding it difficult without sunglasses (he’s missing a hat and sunglasses since Karajini) so we decided to go back to the visitors centre and get some shoes and glasses, and also a book on local fish, so we can identify what we are looking at in the water. While we were getting ready to go, a couple set up their annex off the side of their 4WD in one of the camping bays, and the wind blew it completely over the top of their car. I was impressed with Tony’s tie-down job on ours because even though it had buffeted, nothing had blown away.

Just before we left we walked back down to the beach, it was almost high tide and the water looked SO inviting – we wanted to get our things though and snorkel at some of the more popular areas, so we didn’t go in. We drove up to the Visitors Centre and Tony found some glasses he liked, LiAM found a pair of reef shoes that fitted, and we looked and looked for a local book on fish. We figured we’d be able to get one like the little whales and dolphins one Millie has, or the Western Australian Birds one the ranger gave us at Geikie Gorge. There were hardly any fish ones, and all specific to other areas of Australia. We looked around and talked to the lady at the desk and eventually decided our best option was a guide to Australian fish – it was $20, so more than we’d planned to spend, but hopefully will give us the information we are after.

We were hoping to see our friends from Kings Canyon here, they were staying at a different campsite, not far from the Visitors Centre. We drove up there to see if they were at their van, but they’d gone out for the day. It looked like a nice spot (Neds Campground) with a much more beachy beach than at our spot. Not sure what the snorkeling would be like from here though. Tony had a chat to the camp host about his solar set up.

We decided to go from here to Turquoise Bay – even though the wind was still blowing, the sun was out and the water in the reef was decidedly Turquoise, so it seemed appropriate. There are 2 areas to snorkel at Turquoise Bay – the bay area, which is easier and better for families, and the drift snorkel, where there is a current that takes you over the coral, then you need to swim back to shore before the point. We parked at the drift carpark, then walked around to the bay, along the shoreline. The water was so beautiful to look at, and we had to walk through it occasionally as it came right up to the fence at times. We could see lots of swirling currents at the point, as the water met from two sides and then attempted to leave the lagoon through a gap in the reef.

Around at the bay we got all our snorkeling gear on (I decided to use flippers today). The swell was not huge but was breaking quite hard on the beach, and it was a bit tricky to get everyone past it. Once we were in the water it was cloudy, and we couldn’t see much. Millie saw a few white fish, I didn’t really see anything. We stood up and looked around, it was a long way out to get to the coral, and swimming against the swell was hard. We decided to go back and give the drift snorkel a try – the swell was less there, and we figured Millie and LiAM would be holding our hands anyway so we could protect them against the current. I was impressed with Millie already though – she had gone in the water easily, using her mask and snorkel and flippers, and swam around confidently while holding my hand – I wasn’t sure if she’d manage to snorkel at all while we were here, so this was exciting.

We walked back around to the drift area, playing a bit in the waves as we went.

We swam around in the shallows for a little while, and saw lots of silvery fish, and Millie was quite confident. I took Millie out further into the water and Caitlin came with us. We swam straight out to the coral and saw an incredible number of fish, of all colours. The water was much deeper here, and we could swim over some large areas of coral, and the sea life was abundant. There were tiny little blue fish up to huge silvery sweetlips, 60cm long or more, and everything in between. Millie had enough at one point and popped her head up, swimming back into shore with her, against the current, while trying to hold her up out of the water, was quite difficult and just slightly scary.

Tony went out for a drift snorkel, swimming out to the coral and then drifting down towards the point and then swimming out. The other kids went with him a little way then came back in. He said he saw heaps, then I took the other 2 out, holding LiAM’s hand, with Caitlin swimming next to us. Again we saw a huge number of fish, sea cucumbers, coral – it was great going together and being able to point things out to each other, because we all noticed different things. Swimming back in was easier with LiAM still having his head in the water, so I felt more confident again. We went out 2 more times, this time walking a long way down the beach and then walking out in the water quite a long way, so we only had a short swim across the current to get to the coral, and then we could drift quite a distance before having to swim back in (and I came in quite early, rather than risking the current getting stronger as we got closer to the point). Each time we saw different fish and we soon discovered we could turn around out there and swim against the current if we wanted to show each other something, so we really explored the area well. We saw massive parrot fish and lots of angel fish, anemones, sea urchins, clams, it was incredible every time and so peaceful and beautiful. Whenever I was in the water I just wanted to stay there for hours.

I took Millie in again, this time I was more confident and again took her in from further down the beach so we could drift over more of the coral. She held my hand but was also able to kick and steer herself to see things she wanted to see – she was confident and handled it all easily. She saw so much while she was out there, and getting back to shore was much easier this time with her snorkeling the whole way. For her first day snorkeling she was amazing, this was supposed to be for experienced snorkelers only and she did it like she’d been snorkeling for years.

I went in for a snorkel by myself – amazing how much easier it was when I had 2 hands free for swimming, and then Tony went in again. The kids and I went for a walk further south along the beach, and thought we could see our beach from where we walked too (we checked later and we were right). The sun was getting lower in the sky and the light was beautiful, the water was a deep blue now. We could see whales from time to time our past the reef, breaching or blowing water or just surfacing.

We wandered slowly back up the beach (Caitlin discovered that her footprints are exactly the same size as mine now, and that she takes longer steps than me. Not surprising since she’s nearly my height now, and her legs are slightly longer than mine…), packed up our stuff and headed back to the car. I discovered a couple of blisters on my toes, from my flippers, which might make snorkeling tomorrow a bit interesting!

Back to camp and went down to the beach to spot more turtles and the silvery fish, and to watch the sunset. We talked to our new neighbours, a family Caitlin had seen in Exmouth, who had a 9 year old girl and a boy about Caitlin’s age. We watched the sunset together and talked about what we’d seen so far, what we planned to do over the next couple of days. Tony cooked an egg and bacon pasta for tea, and the girls played with the girl next door until it was ready. We ate our tea and Caitlin browsed the fish book, putting post it notes on the fish that we’d seen. Once again it was chilly and the wind was picking up a bit – it had stopped through the afternoon. It was still warm in the tent, so we headed in there and read for while. Everyone was pretty worn out from so much snorkeling, so we were happy to get to sleep as soon as we could.

Half-lap Day 84: Exmouth -> Cape Range National Park

The rain started again during the night, it was quite loud in the tent and we were worried about whether our repair job on the leak was holding up, so we didn’t get much sleep. Tony got up and checked it at one point and there was a small amount of water coming through, not enough to cause a problem, and by then we were wide awake and couldn’t get back to sleep for ages.

We slept in a bit later than I would have liked on a pack up morning (I like to be up by 6 so I can blog then get on with packing, today was closer to 7). When we had set up the day before, the weather forecast said the wind was coming from the South East, so we’d set up so that the tent was on the eastern side, so that the annex would be protected. The rain and wind came in though from the west, so a lot of our chairs were damp and it was very hard to keep stuff in the annex dry. We usually put it down first and try to get the tent packed up as quickly as possible – today we left the tent and the annex until last so that we could keep things dry. We packed the car and moved everything out of the tent – discovering that water was also coming in through the two end corners – we left the door open to dry out the floor as much as we could before we had to pack it up. The kids went up to the kitchen to watch videos on their iPads, and they did the dishes for us while they were there. There were a few breaks in the rain but it kept starting again, and by the time we had everything packed Tony and I were both completely wet. We’d managed to keep most of our clean clothes and our bedding dry though, so we figured it didn’t matter so much if the tubs or the chairs were wet, we could dry them out later and we could still be warm if we had dry clothes and blankets.

We covered our mattress with a tarp before we put the tent down, and once everything else was done we took down the annex and folded up the tent. Tony siphoned the pooled water off our roof before taking it down, so we have fresh rainwater to drink at Cape Range (there was quite a lot up there, despite doing a lot of work to make the roof flat, we never manage to get rid of all the places that water can pool). We hitched up and got the kids and headed out, leaving by 11 which was not too bad considering how much the rain slowed us down.

We stopped off at the IGA to get supplies for the next few days, and bought petrol, then headed out of town – north along the cape and then turning to the west then down the south side of the cape. It was very grey and wet and the clouds were hanging low. Just before we turned to the south we could see very tall antenna, lots of them, reaching up into the clouds. The tops of them were obscured by the cloud cover, and it looked like the antennae were holding up the sky – or else that we were driving towards some sort of portal to take us to another dimension. It looked quite eerie. (On my map it said ‘VLF antenna’ – not sure what that means, but at least we weren’t imagining them!)

Driving in to the National Park it was still raining and looking pretty miserable, so we decided to drop in to the Discovery Centre and see if the rain eased off later. I got lots of information on snorkeling, and we browsed the gift shop for ages, buying a few gifts for people and LiAM and Millie got a couple more souvenirs. We watched a DVD about the reef and marine area, and read lots of displays about all the animal life we might find in the water and the national park. We could see the ocean out the window and it looked exciting, even in the rain. We were there for about 2 hours, and eventually decided to continue on to our campsite even though it was still raining. Tony made us some sandwiches in the carpark and then we went on.

For the first 2 nights in Cape Range National Park we are staying at the North Mandu campground. Our site is right next to the path to the beach, and the path is only about 80m long. Once we’d backed into the spot we ran down to the beach to get a quick look – the beach here is covered in smooth round stones, some are white, some pink, some grey and all shades in between. The waves here break out on the reef, a few hundred metres from shore, so the water near the beach is calm and protected. While I stood there looking at the water a turtle popped it’s head out – so, so exciting. The waves breaking beyond the reef were huge, and the wind was blowing the spray backwards off the top of them – it was an incredible sight.

We went back to our site to get the tent set up – it actually wasn’t raining much now, just sprinkling really. The website had said the site was 4.5m wide, but it looked wider – I measured it and it was over 5, which meant we could set the tent up across it and then put our annex up (we’d thought we’d have to go the other way and there wouldn’t be room for the annex, not great if it’s going to rain). We decided it would be best if the tent was on the ocean side of the annex so we’d be more protected from the weather. This meant we had to turn the trailer all the way around – which was easy at first on the hard packed dirt, but the rain had softened the edges up and soon the jockey wheel started sinking in the sand, so it was quite an effort to turn it around and then get it close enough to the fence so that the tent would fit within the site. We managed it though, with help from Caitlin and LiAM as well.

Putting the tent up was a bit tricky because it was windy and things kept flapping around, we did it fairly quickly though. We got the annex up and tied it down with more ropes than we’ve ever used before, it seems quite secure despite the wind. I’d filled the thermos with hot water this morning and it was great to be able to quickly make the kids some noodles without waiting to get the stove out – they ate them gratefully and it helped them warm up. There was just enough water left for half a cup of tea for me too. We saw several kangaroos around the site as we were setting up – some of them were quite large, bigger than any wallabies we’ve seen for months. Very cool to have them around and close to the tent.

Once it was all set up we headed back down to the beach and saw more turtles, and some schools of some sort of fish with silver fins, it looked like they were all fishing together. Tony and Caitlin went back to the tent to get their snorkelling gear, and LiAM I sat on the rocks watching the water – and saw humpback whales breaching and diving out beyond the break. It was very cool – I’d been told we might be able to see them from shore, these guys were much closer than I’d hoped.

Tony and Caitlin tentatively made their way into the water and we saw a couple of turtles pop their heads up not far away from them (the turtles had moved on by the time they went under water though). I saw 2 reef sharks swimming between Tony and the shore. Caitlin and Tone swam around for a while, occasionally surfacing, and came out excited, they’d seen a huge variety of fish, an eel, and sea urchins. LiAM and Millie and I had seen more whales while we sat on the beach, and LiAM had seen some crabs down in the rock pools. Millie and LiAM found the most amazing looking shells – shaped like shell pasta, they were pink on top then chocolate brown around the bottom half. Underneath the long sides curled towards each other to form a long slit with scalloped edges.  

As they walked out of the water Tony and Caitlin saw a blue spotted ray. LiAM and I went to get our snorkeling gear and Caitlin showed us the easiest place to get in. The tide was going out and there was a bit of a current heading out to sea, so we had to swim carefully to make sure we stayed close to the shore. We saw fewer fish than the others had, but still a cool variety – some blue ones, stripey black and white ones, grey fish with yellow along their sides, tiny little fish, some that camoflauged into the sand below, some sea cucumbers and lots of sea urchins. Clams too, and we’d also seen them on the rocks as the tide went out. As we walked out, being careful not to step on anything, I got a sharp pain in my heel. I ripped my shoe off and checked my foot, I couldn’t see any injury and I asked the kids to help see if we could find what hurt me. LiAM said ‘there’s something in your shoe’ – there was a large conical piece of coral sticking out of my shoe, and the point of it had been what hurt my heel. Obviously I need to be even more careful walking out of the water!

Back at camp we got changed and then got the chairs organised and I set the beds up. The ground is covered in tiny, sandy rocks, so we have set up towels to wipe our feet on as we go into the tent, and no shoes allowed in the tent at all. The kids played in the tent because it was much warmer in there, out of the wind – the wind was coming from the east, so straight into our annex. We would have been warmer if we had put the tent up the other way around, facing the shore. Tony organised some food while I hung up wet clothes and put some more wax on the tent in the places where water had been coming in. We ate leftover butter chicken wrapped in rice paper rolls, very yummy. Once we’d eaten we tidied and secured all our stuff outside, then went into the cosy tent and read a couple of chapters of Inheritance. It took us a while to get to sleep because the wind was flapping the tent and annex and making a lot of noise, and it started raining again (it had been coming in sideways for some of the time we were tidying up) and it was not a peaceful environment conducive to sleep!