Morning manoeuvres ...

Our first mission of the morning is often to make hot drinks.

When Vaughan later emerged from the van, he was very keen to start a fire.

It had rained overnight (though the van stayed dry), so the existing fireplace was very wet.  Nick and Vaughan made a new fire-ring on a dryer patch.

I was cooking our breakfast on the other side of the van and couldn't see what they were doing but heard them chatting to the campervan men.

When packing, we'd remembered the Cobb cookers and all their accessories but hadn't thought of having a fire and using it for cooking - hence our fire-frame (and camp ovens) stayed at home.  I used the Cobb wok and solid plate on the dual-fuel stove to chef brekkie.  It worked well, though I needed to do the eggs in batches.

We discovered during one of our earliest camping trips that eggs don't travel well in their cardboard cartons.  The hard plastic carriers work well - if you have small eggs! Our chookies had been nicely productive, though I had to pick through our supply for the right-sized eggs!  Erin discovered one ripe tomato prior to leaving, so that was shared at breakfast also - home produce!

When I took breakfast around to Nick and Vaughan, they were watching our neighbours dismantle their campervan.  A winding cable had broken during their journey to camp, so they had rigged a supporting pole to hold the roof up.  The two of them then needed to lower the roof evenly for pack-up.  It was an interesting exercise and Nick offered some assistance when he finished eating. 

While chatting to them, they commented that they'd been retired for 25-years and came away camping to give their wives a break!  The oldest of the two was 82, which gave us hope that we have many more years of adventuring ahead of us!

After the campervan departed, Nick connected our van and reshuffled it into a parallel position further away from our other neighbours' car.  We faced the caravan door to the forest and Elmer parked behind (at a right angle) so we could use his tray and portable LED light-bar for cooking.