Endless Summer…or endless monsoon?!

The BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) website seems to be our best friend lately, as we ask ourselves the question…are we chasing an endless Summer, or an endless monsoon?!

We moved to a beachside house while building Lucy, thinking that in between building we could frolic in the water and relax into the beach life. 3 months passed and I swam twice, mostly due to a fairly average Melbourne Summer! Since heading off on our roadtrip, I can count the amount of hot , sunny days we have had on one hand. The best weather believe it or not was in Bright, Victoria, where I actually managed to swim in the river on more than one occasion!

Since then, we have passed the border – rain, into NSW – rain, passed the Sapphire Coast – rain, Sydney – 8 days out of 10 rain, and are now on the Central Coast – where we currently have a severe weather warning, flash flooding, damaging winds and up to 120mm of rain. Do you see the thing these places all have in common?! You guessed it – RAIN!!

When first researching the vanlife, we saw endless photos of blue skies, beach sunsets, van doors open, outdoor cooking and plenty of lazing in  hammocks strung between 2 tress… all while working on a killer Summer tan! What we have is not what the brochure said damn it!! It’s more like….oh look it’s rainy again today…let’s wait for a break in the rain to take the dogs out for a morning wee. Oh crap…the rain has started again – RUN!! Kick the thongs off, stumble inside, wet dogs, wet feet…dry off. Wait a bit longer. Check BOM to see what we are facing. An hour passes. Open the van door to let some air in….RAIN – close the door!! This repertoire continues countless times. I see a skerrick of blue sky, so proceed to take Wolly to the dog wash at the van park we are currently at. I start bathing…you guessed it – pouring RAIN! Finish bathing her, towel dry (why bother?!) proceed to under cover area and wait (for 45 minutes) for the rain to pass enough to run back to the van and bang profusely on the door – let me in!!! Wet human, even wetter dog. Check BOM. Ascertain that the weather is looking even worse at our next planned stop (which is a free camp by a river bank) so we extend our stay another night in hope of riding out the storm. Not to mention, all this grey sky is not the best when relying on the sun as a power source! Next day, a whole lot of the same, though we did squeeze in a lovely hour beach stroll, collecting shells, running up and down sand dunes and playing in the shallows. We take a deep breathe, look out to sea and agree that this is what holidays are meant to be. Get back to the van just in time…before you guessed it – the rain!

Check BOM again. The huge patches of storm clouds have gone South and missed us – YAY!! But oh look…now a new storm surge is heading from the South East up! We check the weather at our next stop and there are floods and serious warnings. We do not want to be driving through that. Extend at the van park another 2 days.

Today we’ve been lucky enough to have rain on, rain off, so we have a lot of door open, door close action! After lunch I think….oooo I’d really like a cake and coffee. Check BOM. Very small window of  possible no rain. Wind is so strong, trees are blowing everywhere and the grey sky looks pretty menacing. But cake…. We put our runners on, dive out the van and plan to run the 800m there and back. Maybe not – RAIN!! Back in the van. Wait 5 minutes. Oh screw that, I can already taste that cake. We have never power walked 800m so quickly!! Choose our cakes, get some almond and rice milk from the supermarket and walk back double time. Take the dogs out quickly for a walk. I have cake now, so I don’t care if it rains….and wowzers does it rain!

We now sit here, full cake bellies, analysing BOM and whether we stay yet another day, or take a risk, continue North into what we know will be even heavier rain, gail force winds and potential flash flooding.

Sorry boogie board, inflatable watermelon and bathers, you’ve been put on the back burner…newly purchased umbrella on the other hand – hello friend!

JT xo