Rain

Fri 22^nd  - Monday 25^th August

At 4am Mick was out of bed and heading to the airport for a trip to Sydney to pick up another ex-army land rover that Brendan had bid for online. Another major weather event was predicted and it was already raining when they left. In fact it rained steadily all day and that night. A bit before lunch time Robyn rushed up to the caravan and recruited me to go and man the office while she took a friend to Brisbane for a hospital appointment. Because of the weather there was nobody stupid enough to want to hire a boat, so I had a quiet day answering a few calls, chatting to a few of the marina residents and looking out at the rain. I shut the office at 5:30, went home and cooked some dinner for Robyn for when she got home after dark. A bit after 1:30am Mick and Brendan arrived home soaked to the skin. They had driven the landy back from Sydney in the rain. They said there was as much rain in the car as there was on the outside. The canvas roof peeled back on the driver’s side and the rain pelted in. Brendan stuffed his favourite t-shirt in the gap, but it blew away, lost forever.

The rain continued all through the next day and night too. The carpet in the van was sopping wet – a leak from who knows where. It was wet under my bed and between the beds. We tried to sop it up with towels, but to no avail. Eventually Robyn organised for us to put the van out on a block belonging to their friend, Red. There we were able to connect to power and use the blow heater to try to dry it out. Red also lent us a big tarp that was strung up over the van to stop any more rain getting in. Eventually Red’s father located the leak – a hairline crack in the plate the driver’s side back lights are attached to. When the outside of the van was dry enough Brendan spent a couple of hours going over it and sealing every join with some marine sealant that he uses. In the meantime Red lent us a wet and dry vacuum cleaner and we got more than a gallon of water out of the carpets – it would have taken months with the blow heater. We were so thankful for the help we were given so generously.