We packed up, filled up the fresh water tanks again (we had used 50 litres overnight), and dumped the waste water before heading off to Sherwood Forest for the Easter weekend chapter gathering.
I had bought a water tap doubler to donate to the Lions Sausage Sizzle Caravan so that motorhomers could use the the only threaded tap in the park without having to disconnect the Lions Caravan. The guy who was in charge of the Caravan said that the Lions Club had to have a licence from the council to use the water tap and had to pay a fee for the licence so he claimed that I shouldn't use the tap. I didn't want to argue with him even though the tap is freely available to motorhomers when the Lions Caravan is not there. I used my electric bucket and filled the jerry can from the other tap in the park, the one with no threaded connection and with a spring loaded tap.
We got to Sherwood Forest in time for a late lunch. Brian Galland turned up in the afternoon and we went with him down to the river flats to set up for the weekend. We happy houred until the midges drove us indoors at sundown.
We went to Jimboomba to do the laundry but we found that the laundromat was inaccessible due to a building project. We drove to Beaudesert to use the laundromat there. We had coffee at a local cafe. We had to wait a long time for our coffee and we got back to the laundromat after the machines had finished their cycles.
We went to the new Woolworths in Beaudesert to buy stuff for the weekend and to MacDonalds for lunch.
Happy hour spilled over into an evening around the campfire. There were seven of us and the conversations were extensive and deep.
I had been keeping an eye on our water consumption and we have been doing much better than we did last week.
We spent most of the day chatting. In the afternoon the ladies played scrabble until the wind forced them to stop.
We got back to the Motley at about alf past six and had a nice meal of steakettes and cous cous.
I went to Jimboomba to do some more shopping. When I got back, Brian had cooked a most excellent fruit damper for morning tea.
In the afternoon, I worked at preparing and cooking the roast pork dinner I had promised the assembled gathering. I was supervised by Brian who is a most experienced and expert camp oven cook. I learned a lot from him about how to get it right.
Brian had cooked bread and butter pudding to cap off the meal and the chapter distributed the raffle prizes, fourteen bottles of wine, one bottle to each of us. without running the raffle. Everyone seemed to appreciate the meal so we must have done something right.
The efforts of yesterday had taken their toll on my body so I took a rest day.
In the afternoon I found some energy and washed the solar panels. We dined on steakettes and barbecued vegetables from yesterday's roast dinner which was very pleasant. I forgot to switch the fridge back to gas after I switched the generator off and finished up with very low batteries. I will have to devise some better alarm system to stop this happening.
I spent some time in the morning developing a new page for the Eco-Camping Australia website to provide some advice on the subject of toilet chemicals. I finished it after lunch and modified the rest of the site to accept the new page. I couldn't upload it because the wireless modem wouldn't make a connection to the network so I'll have to wait until I get back to Brisbane.
We had a quiet day. I went to Beaudesert to do a bit of shopping. In the evening we had barbecued kangaroo fillets (from the supermarket) and camp oven roast veges.
It has been a terrific weekend with lovely food, great wine, and wonderful company. It is great to be back on the road.