Roughin' it!

Some trips are very well provisioned, with a full menu plan, including a few pre-prepared meals.  This one wasn't! I'd thought to include ingredients for our first dinner and had plenty of coffee/tea etc - but no breakfast cereal, so we enjoyed a small cheese platter instead!

I'd made two travel tea cosies before leaving home and was pleased with how well the smaller one worked.  It's so effective that I'll now need to make a handle cover as the metal gets quite hot!

It is possible to fold the trailer with the awning attached, so we decided to do that.  It was quite windy though and once folded, the lid didn't sit right - so we re-did everything about five times in total, assuming the wind had impacted.  

It took 90 minutes before we closed everything down properly - and we were both feeling quite frustrated by that stage (though there were no harsh words spoken)!

I'd packed more lightly than usual and hadn't brought much in the way of warmer clothes.  Neither had Nick, who was wearing several t-shirt layers!  I was pleased to have remembered extra bedding for our bed and Vaughan's as we'd all been cold during the night.  Nick chatted to the manager in the morning, who confirmed the temperature had dropped to 2 degrees at one point - which made us feel less soft!

We made a quick stop in town at the butcher cos we'd liked the rissoles during our January bunker stay, then continued onward.

Takeaway lunch was had at Roma's biggest bottle tree and there were a couple of roadside stops.  Elmer was making an odd noise at one point, caused by a metal strip breaking free along the passenger side.  It was decorative only, so the remainder was removed and we had a short walk while stopped.

Vaughan was keen to look at a sandy creek closer to Mitchell, so we bought afternoon tea in town and then back-tracked to the creek, for a wander after our refreshments.  No wildlife was found but it was very pretty in the afternoon light.

Given how long we'd taken to set up the previous night and the fact that it was 4ish, we stayed at Mitchell that night - on a drive-through, ensuite site. We opted for awning-less setup that night and all was accomplished much more quickly.  

In transit, our bed was covered with an old sheet with Vaughan's and Bandit's beds on top - along with the camping mats and a few other bits.  It was fairly easy to lift the beds down onto the floor area, replace the curtain and set up tables/chairs (which were packed beneath the bed).  The space between the cupboards (where I'm standing in the bottom collage) was mainly used to house our shoe bag, laundry hamper and fold-up step when traveling.   

Day 2, Miles to Mitchell - 244km