Somewhere at the end of August I got a text from Darren Burgess with a few too many “xxx’s” at the end of it for me to take him seriously. It was Colleen. And she was “asking” if they could lob up at our house in 12 hours and stay for 10 days. They concocted this extraordinary excuse; evacuating from an earthquake in Bali. I humoured them because they were bringing 2 x the most adorable sons with them. And Colleen is my third sister.
I was in a world of pain with work that week, but hours somehow materialised to stay up late, go out, drink wine, make them cakes, and go camping. The agony of it. They were categorically the best hit to the 2018 Dry Season.
Some statistics on the camp: 5 adults. 4 kids. 10 bottles of wine. A tonne of beer…. and 600mls of water. With no potable water in the campground.
The kids learnt a very valuable exercise in patience whilst we cranked the campfire in the middle of the day, boiled the water, and generously used the ice from the beer esky to cool it down so they could hydrate. I use the term “we” pretty loosely because the only part I played in this was taking a photo of it.
Then. I also learnt a valuable lesson in patience. When I put my camera on the front seat of the ute, that went to collect firewood whilst the sunset splintered through the trees, illuminated the smoke and frolicking children, cast incredible shadows and generally taunted me with its flare and brilliance in the dusty outback. I hydrated myself through the anguish.
Some photos….
