Pensive in Port Fairy .

For the first time the sky is proper blue here by the river in Port Fairy.  The town began by being called Belfast but someone didn’t like that and a ship called the Fairy took shelter here in a storm and the rechristening took place.  Only the odd café is called Belfast now.  It is a lovely town – full of elegant old buildings going back to its origins as an off shore whaling port like Eden, although they had no helpful killer whales here and seem to have fished the waters out very early on.  There was a steamship company here too and some tragic wrecks.  The road changed everything of course and now Port Fairy is a prospering tourist town though there are few of us here now as the mornings are nippy and you need two quilts at night

The land round here is a flood plane and there are notices about what to do in case of a flood.  Yesterday we heard sirens go off and were a little perturbed.  But it turns out that is the signal for the voluntary fire brigade to muster and there must have been two fires.  They said in the museum that they tried using pagers but people felt more comfortable with the sirens.  It kept them in the loop.

There was a lovely sunset over the river last night.  I called to Grant “Look at the sunset” but he was reading and grunted.  I thought how far we have come since 2000 when we were on a beach in Fiji and the sky was ablaze – a once in a lifetime sunset and I called then “Come and see this amazing sunset” “Do I have to?” he replied.  I got very upset.  Divorce was in the wind. How could I spend the rest of my life with such an insensitive brute.  And now I just smile and go my way. How different we all are.  I wonder how particular my responses to waterways, which we see a lot of on this trip, in fact are.  I am a bit anthropomorphic about water.  Lakes seem to me have given up on life and just sit there in their gloom.  Rivers are dogged and purposeful and waterfalls a bit hysterical.  I could never live near a waterfall and would always be wanting to turn it off.  The sea however is calming and so much wiser than me.  It comes and goes according to its needs and is a good grandmother.

Anyway enough of this maundering on. There is the sullage to empty and the tank to fill and the Coorong to reach by tonight.  Did I mention Grant found me a china toast rack in the Lifeline shop in town.  My breakfast is far more elegant in the van than at home.  These little niceties make all the difference when one’s sweater is a fortnight’s worth of grubby and shouldn’t be tumble dried..

Campsite tips.  I began by picking the shower with a dry floor in the amenities block but now I cunningly choose a wet floor because it means the water will come out warm and there is no icy prelude to it.  Also access to the blocks themselves  can be fraught with frustrations, losing the key, forgetting the diabolical password.  Grant solves this problem by sticking a Norfolk Pine seed worm in the door of the Mens.  I however have a knitter’s memory and can usually tap my way into the Ladies’s keyboard with my eyes shut but not open.  What one learns about oneself.