On Tuesday night we decided to go camping.  Drew is visiting from Sydney so it was a good excuse.  However, the whole thing became a bit of a disaster and ended up with us at home eating beans.  It was an adventure none the less.

I can’t really say there weren’t warning signs.  It was raining a bit on Tuesday morning but the weather forecast assured us it would be clear in the afternoon and we decided to trust it.  I guess here in Alice we aren’t used to things being ruined by rain and at 5pm when we picked up Ryan from work it was fine.  Five was leaving things a bit late but our destination was just over an hour away so that gave us about almost an hour of light to set up. However, our first problem struck.  The other car coming with us got a flat tyre. By the time the spare was on it was actually 6pm that we headed off realising that we’d be setting up tents in the dark.  I guess not so bad on its own.

Then the second problem struck.  As we drove the storm began.  It started with some pretty cool lightening, then some crashing thunder and finally the rain hit.  We drove for about 45 minutes hoping it would get better but it just kept getting worse.  With a heavy heart Martin and I decided that we couldn’t really put Nina through that but maybe Drew who was in our car could go with the others in the other car.   So we turned around expecting to meet the other car in about 5 minutes.  Ten minutes later when we still hadn’t passed them I realised our third drama was upon us.

Finally, after driving for 25 minutes of stressfull driving we found them on the side of the road in the rain.  The spare had exploded and they were waiting for a tow truck to come.  It was such a blessing it had happened under a little hill where they could get enough mobile coverage to call.  And I was totally grateful as well that we had decided to come back.  They were carrying all our sleeping stuff including Nina’s.  If we had got to the spot, set up camp in the rain and dark and then they hadn’t arrived it would’ve been a lot worse.

So none of us ended up the camping but the beans, the shelter of a home on a stormy night and the one good decision to turn back before arriving are things I am grateful for.