Stormy night at Lake Gairdner

Second night on Tasmania (Comments from the driver in brakets). It was a wild one!
After having spent a beautiful day exploring around Devonport - we went to an arboretum with platypus, a winery and Sheffield, the town best known for its many murals - we drove to a wikicamp site next to a river, not far from Lake Gairdner. The whole day we had been experiencing showers, but nothing too bad. Luckily we were able to prepare (I guess the pressure cooker we used for the first time deserves a blog post of its own) and eat dinner fairly dry and went to bed around 9.30pm. And then... we were woken up several times by wind and rain that shook Hans (the car for those who don't know yet) so strongly that we thought we will tipp over (you know, not really but it was quite scary). Lightning lit up the pop top tent as bright as daylight and every time you thought it was over, another blow hit. But, we didn't tipp over and the tent staid dry.
Waking up in the morning to - a short patch of - sunlight, we realised the real aftermath: our rail for the awning at the back of the car had been ripped off! Luckily the awning didn't blow away (unlike one of our beach shade thingies that we had to fish out of the river). During a short break in the rain Tom established that our camp neighbour carried a rivet gun (one of the few things we actually don't have with us) and was able to fix the rail. As it kept on showering, we still packed up fairly quickly and proceeded in pursuit of the sun, only to find SNOW at Cradle Mountain! Jup, that's vanlife as well.Read more