CHAPTER THE THIRD
Being a more or less contemporaneous account of the Prop's perigrinations even unto the uttermost parts of the Great Southern Land.
Dolphin Sands to Campbell Town
Having blown some hot air on the sharp end of his trusty Biro and scribbled on a bit of scrap paper, the Prop was delighted to find that the ink was still running after nearly four years!
In what must have been a force 6 gale on the Beaufort scale the Prop and his wife spent the early part of the day loading the neccessaries (and, it has to be conceded, quite a few un-neccessaries (4 cameras , 3 computers, 2 short wave radios [who listens to short wave any more?] and a partridge in a pear tree) into the 'Trol and the Spinnaker. The former being a 1990 Nissan Patrol which the Prop has owned almost since he was a boy, the latter being a rather commodious 16ft caravan complete with shower and karsi.
On departure, a rather portly gentleman appeared with a glass of champagne and a top hat and insisted on making a long, but well-intentioned farewell speech. Although it delayed our departure by some hours, it was much appreciated - and quite moving in an odd sort of way.
The aforesaid portly but genial gentleman
The journey from Dolphin Sands to Campbell Town was scenic but uneventful. The Prop feared that "the Rig" might buffeted by high winds or that there may be ice on the Lake Leake Road (or even leak on the Lake Ice Road!) but none of these things came to pass.
After the rousing farewell from Dolphin Sands our arrival in Campbell Town was marked by....well, it was not marked at all. The Prop wasn't expecting a ticker-tape parade but it would have been nice if the Mayor (or even an ordinary councillor) had turned out to greet us. As it was we headed straight to the municipal "RV Friendly" reserve to find that we were the only happy campers taking advantage of generosity of the ratepayers of the Northern Midlands Council that night.
