We drove back into Alice after having a lazy pack up and a
walk around the rockholes and lookout of John Hayes. The ‘surprise’ or ‘mystery event’ was to
happen on Saturday. Glenn knew something
was happening, and more so, knew that we were going to have visitors. Given that, there was a bit of discussion
about which site to setup on for the week.
Where we were allocated was apparently ok, but not great. We would have to fix that.
We had been in 38 – 40 degree days up until now. That night however, a big storm rolled in,
not much rain, just a few drops, but it definitely brought the cold. We were camped right under a tree, so we
enjoyed a lot of swaying, swoosing and scratching all night on top of the
camper. Was peaceful.
The next morning, was hot again, quite hot. Amy had sussed out which site we actually
wanted to be in, to be in the most convenient vicinity to our ‘mystery guest’
as she put it. Amy had never debated and
thought through in so much detail which site we were to have. This stress was not what holidays are made
of. J There was a family on that site, but we’d
heard that they were due to leave that morning, if they didn’t extend. “They don’t look like their packing up” Amy
declared after walking back from the toilets.
“The kids are riding bikes and the dad is on his laptop”. Hmmm....
the suspense. Will they, won’t
they?
A short time later, Amy came back with a “They are packing
up!!!!, Whooo hooo”. Go Mrs Mangles!
After they had left, Amy sorted out the office business, and
we had to pack up, annex and all, and move sites. It was going to be for the best! Wow, what a process. We had to move all of about 20 metres, but it
was a struggle, and the heat made it even more enjoyable. It was going to be for the best!
 |
| Our relocated site - much closer to our mystery guest... |
After the relocation was complete, we then headed into town
for some beautification, coffee, and shopping.
That night in our new ‘pad’, which ended up being quite nice
and very convenient actually, another storm rolled in. This time it brought some heavy rain. Alice had been without rain for something
like 150 days. We were the
drought-breakers. The rain kept coming
and coming, for most of the night. We
definitely hadn’t seen rain like this the whole trip. Along with the rain came with it something
even worse, the COLD. Geeez it was
cold. The next morning we had to go
searching for our winter clothes. Very
strange.
We had a little bit of shopping to do that morning, and
Glenn had been let know that we had to be at camp at around 11ish. So we trundled off and did a small shop for
the week. Glenn was asking questions
like, “should we buy some rolls and a chicken for the guests?”, “do we need to
find an extra chair”, and “gee that cabin you pointed out that our guest(s)
will be staying is BIG.. Hmmm”. All of
this was pretty challenging for Amy, who was struggling to keep everything
under wraps.
After getting home and packing away the shopping, we sat
around looking at each other. Soon after
mysterious texts started ‘dinging’ on Amy’s phone. Hmm... what’s going on there? Has someone arrived at the airport?? More sitting around, more ‘dings’. Hmmmm.. seems to be taking a long time....
perhaps they’ve gone for some lunch.
All this kept building up, and kept doing Amy’s head
in. Eventually she texted the mystery
guests (so Glenn found out later) and said “Where are you, he’s getting hard to
contain, AND he’s getting cocky!!!”
Glenn had started digging a little, and acting like he knew what was
going on. He didn’t.
We ended up walking around the caravan park following the
girls riding their bikes. We did a few
laps, trying to waste some time.....
All of a sudden there was a stampede behind us. Amy turned around, saw what was coming, and
turned back, trying not to laugh.
Savannah was behind us, and all of a sudden got swamped by a bunch of
people she knew. They all bypassed her
and descended, with party poppers going, and cries and laughter on Glenn.
It was the whole bloody family!!!! Mum, Dad, two sisters, two brother-in-laws,
and our niece and nephew. The whole
bloody lot had jumped on a plane, hired a car, sneaked into the park, and jumped
on Glenn!!!!
It was a hell of a racket, lots of hugs, lots of surprised
hollers from Glenn, lots of smiles, and one huge relieved sigh from Amy, who
didn’t have to keep anything secret for any longer! “Ohhh thank god that’s over!” she said. Others in the park must have wondered what
was going on!
What a huge effort from everyone, to come and meet us on our
trip, and celebrate Glenn’s 40th.
This will go down in family history, for SURE!
No comments:
Post a Comment