The Middleton Beach campsite has wonderful views across King George Sound to Michaelmas Island and Breaksea island. The sound is protected on the west side by Flinders Peninsula which provides Grain Ships with a sheltered anchorage while they wait to be loaded.
According to the man who sold us the Camper Trailer, packing up should only take about half an hour. We took four hours. Apart from the time taken to load the enormous “stuff to go into storage” pile, we had several false starts at winding the roof down which is meant to be the last thing to do before hooking the trailer up and setting off. The first attempt at winding the roof down failed because we left the bedding on the beds which prevented the roof from closing completely. So up went the roof so that the bedding could be removed.
The second attempt to close the roof succeeded but then we realised that we hadn’t switched the battery on and set the fridge to “travel” mode. After that I lost count of the number of ups and downs. The roof must have looked like a giant white flag being raised and lowered because the Grain Ships started to offer encouragement using Semaphore.
So, as the other campers looked on whilst having leisurely Breakfasts with fresh coffee, we battled on. Then, as those same campers washed up their dishes, packed up, took a shower, checked out and smugly departed we continued to battle on. Eventually we managed to stuff, cram and kick our luggage into the trailer, hook it up to the car and depart. I’m sure I heard applause coming from inside some camper trailers, and the campsite owner seemed to be suppressing a smirk as we drove by.
We picked up Emily from Lucy’s, said our goodbyes to the Leiper-Bonnins and headed off to our next stop, Denmark, where we managed to setup the trailer in only three hours! We met some other campers – Kim and Julie Gardiner and their children. They were renting a caravan and were interested in our trailer. I assured them that our setup time should not be considered a Benchmark, rather an indication of our ability to follow simple instructions and think ahead.