A little rain over night but nothing significant. The predicted damaging rains and damaging winds must have decided to have a battle to the death elsewhere and failed to appear.
I don’t know why we even bother looking at the weather channel, they have got absolutely not a dot of an idea. It is extraordinary that a whole cable TV channel could be dedicated to reporting weather, with these knuckleheads constantly banging on 24hrs a day yet never ever getting it right.
We stupidly continue to use their advice to plan, and continually ask ourselves why we bother. This morning we planned our next five days based on the weather channel forecast, which had done a complete back flip by this afternoon. What was 3 days of sun, surf and good times this morning is now, this afternoon, doom, gloom, and storms.
Poo Poo Head made a friend with the little girl of the family that coincidently Ross wrote about last night who were sitting in their car with the camper attached waiting for the rain to ease. They are set up just near us and obviously set up in the rain because it drizzled till about 11pm last night. 
When we arrived in Lakes Entrance yesterday, we drove around the place a few times to get our bearings and work out which park to stay in. As it happens, maybe we should have decided before we arrived and gone straight there.
As we turned into the chosen park, we heard a scrapping noise. The camper hitch is quite high and the camper very high and as Ross has a cursory look in the mirror, Barb said she couldn’t see Ross’s bike behind the car on the bike rack.
Disaster … the nuts had come loose on the bike rack and Ross’s bike had slipped off and was jammed between the tailgate of the ute and half under the camper “A” frame. Ross is very particular about his car, to say the least, (massive understatement). The bike had taken a good beating with a destroyed wheel and damaged frame … and the tailgate of the ute was badly scratched.
The whole world (read Barb) held its collective breath, whilst hoping it could either instantly morph to a completely different place or become instantly invisible. Ross processed the scene in stunned silence, then speaking through clenched teeth between sobs, suggested that Barb go and book us in to the caravan park.
Ross then undertook some very high intensity “personal meditation” in the car park and by the time Barb returned the bike was remounted, and the tears had all but dried up and there was a painful smile.
Ross and Barb looked at all the possibilities, took a vote and decided that was best just to blame the Poo Poo Head and be done with it. Poo Poo Head is now banned from mounting the bike on the bike rack and also banned from driving the Navara for the rest of his life.
The caravan park we are in is the Water’s Edge which is walking distance to town opposite the water. The caravan park is a Big4 park but is in reality a very average caravan park which we don’t know how they got a 4 star rating, other than the price. Ross has stayed here before and whilst the new amenity block is vast improvement over the old one, it’s very over rated.
We walked in town and took Poo Poo Head to the local toy shop to get some ideas for his xmas presents. The local toy shop is first class with a great range jam packed inside.
Poo Poo Head spotted a mini putt putt, so we went up for a round. We discovered there are two mini putt putts next door to each other; where there was only one the last time we were here. What business genius decides to open a mini putt putt next to a well existing and established mini putt putt.
There is obviously some idiot that thinks Lakes Entrance has the base to support two side by side. Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast; we’re tipping even Disneyland can’t justify two ….. but apparently Lakes Entrance can. Time will tell.
The original putt putt guy must have been livid.
There’s not much for us here in Lakes Entrance, neither Ross nor Barb are particularly fond of the place. It’s a good place to come with a group of people, and it was only ever meant to break up the drive from Merimbula in the last few days of the trip.
Now with everything changed and the only places of interest to us between Lakes Entrance and Melbourne underwater, tomorrow morning we are back to Melbourne to chase some sun at Philip Island.
We plan to spend tomorrow night at home so we can off load some gear and do a couple of repairs before heading to Philip Island Saturday morning. Because of the circumstances we’ve found ourselves in due to weather, and now being so close to home so early, Ross wants to use the opportunity to pick up the annex and see if it all fits as it should. He ordered the annex at the Caravan Show in April and picked it up in August, but we haven’t had to opportunity to put it up as yet.
We didn’t bring the annex with us on this trip because it’s not something we would use on this kind of trip, it’s a more static holiday addition. I also takes up a bit of room and adds unnecessary weight.
We did bring the alloy annex wall rails because they clamp to the awning edges and help stabilize the awning in strong wind. After the wall rail brackets failed on their first outing in Hervey Bay, and Ross had to repair them (long time ago now), Ross is keen to check the entire annex sooner rather than later, should it need to go back.
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