That's Entertainment

Whilst the rest of Australia has been taking their inflatable mattresses out to ride rapids down streets more usually known for dust than water we've been plagued by fire. For the past couple of weeks camp sites and national parks along our path have been inaccessible due to fire with such regularity I have begun to suspect it is Jean who is lighting them.

...which brings me to the things we do to keep ourselves occupied. Whilst we do have some mod cons along with us such as a year's supply of movies to watch in bed,

...and a 600 Watt coffee grinder and associated coffee debris

(hey, we're roughing it but we're not barbarians) in general we make do without most of the trappings of our sedentary lives. Some trappings we didn't mean to do without - like cold beer. The fridge/freezer is still under-performing to such an extent it wouldn't surprise me if it got picked for Australia for the next Test and also sadly the combination ice-crusher that came with the coffee grinder has proven to have quite a dependency on the fridge/freezer.

Stop Press - Manjimump electricians have restored the Legend in Reliability!!!

Even though the fridge didn't do much for cold beer it did form a barrier against the rest of our stuff sliding all over the van. Hopefully it will be back from the Engel fixer in Manjimup in the next day or two.

So what do we do with ourselves? Jean has her ukelele and often finds herself accompanied whether she wants it or not by my melodica.  (Speaking of unsolicited backup we found out on New Year's Eve this year that all of the residents of Bridgetown fit into one of two categories – those who play along with the band on pretend harmonicas and those who brought their real harmonica along.) I've been teaching myself a couple of new fishing knots and Jean likes bird watching, playing the ukelele, arson and crocheting. I was a bit suspicious at first when I saw that Jean's bird watching list included duck, magpie and emu but since then she has progressed to noting creatures such as Sooty Oyster Catchers and the Red Wattle Bird.

[ ] duck  [x] emu  [ ] magpie  [ ] sooty oyster catcher

We did stop near Pemberton to play one of the local fruit machines

...but we got the sense that it wasn't going to pay out any time soon. There is of course always the opportunity to improve our standard of living by fine tuning the van. I recently invented the pictured hydraulic system for keeping the van flat when parked on a slope.

Actually it is very hard to tell whether the van is flat or not since most of my woodwork inside the van resembles that done by the guys who worked on the Etamoogah pub. Speaking of woodwork – we weren't sure after climbing one of the old fire-watching trees near Manjimup whether our hearts were pumping due to exertion or sheer fear.

We hadn't climbed one of these for ten years since we first came to Perth - which was only just long enough for it to seem like a reasonable idea again. Thankfully I seem to have kicked my recent fainting habit and I was very careful not to stand on Jean's sore finger on the way back down.

See yas when we do.