Rain, rain, rain- so much for sunny Qld!

The rain, gentle at first, has been coming down harder and harder all day.  We're very glad we're at the caravan park on the hill, not the creekside one which has flooded three times in three years.  I'd love to know how much water's in that creek we were beside yesterday.

Retreat Creek yesterday, before the rain.



Another good point about this caravan park is that it's covered in gravel.  It seemed a bit unusual at first, till we realised there's no grass being tracked into the van, which has been a bit of a pain elsewhere.  No matter how well you wipe your feet, or even if you take your shoes off, you still end up with grass on the floor, but not here.  Another advantage of the gravel is that it doesn't become boggy, ever- according to Norm, the owner, even after 7 and a half inches overnight. No barefoot walking on the gravel, but most of the places we've had grass also had burrs, so not very pleasant underfoot anyway (and let's not talk about the burrs you walk inside!)

John and Margaret's rig on the right, ours on the left at Sapphire Caravan Park (when the sun was shining).

We got out for a while after lunch, driving into Rubyvale for a look-see.  It's a surprising town, more organised than Sapphire, which is a collection of buildings scattered at a distance from each other on winding roads.  Rubyvale has a pub, a PO, a shop/servo, and even a gallery/cafe.  The stones, mostly set in rings, in the gallery were beautiful, and I understand the scones are great in the cafe, but we had the dog with us (of course) and Ruby is the lapdog par excellence- so spoilt she can't be left alone for a minute, and either John or Margaret has to stay with her.  I wonder why her legs just don't fall off, she has little use for them, she gets carried everywhere. John was willing to stay with her while we had a coffee, but we didn't like to keep him there too long so we went back "home" to the van.

Back at the van (it's times like these you're SO glad you're not in a tent) we had our own coffee and watched a movie- we have lots of choices, thanks R&H.  We watched Age of Heroes, which was very good.  The outside temp's 13 degrees at 4pm, inside it's 26 degrees so nice and cosy.

Ah well, the rain's doing someone some good, somewhere.