Day 76: From Leasingham to Adelaide (16/08/12)

It was not raining yet when we packed up at Leasingham, but things were not looking terribly good. We drove down the Main North Road in the direction of Gawler through patches of brilliant sunshine, but with very dark clouds over our shoulder. For a while it looked as if we would outrun them and they would pass harmlessly behind us. But our speed was limited due to the very hard and gusty wind from our side and the clouds, sensing our desire to escape their contents, made an encircling movement and massed up slightly ahead of us. For a while we drove in no-mans land between dry and very wet, struggling against the buffeting of the gust front. Then the road turned traitor and sided with the clouds, veering to the right and leading us straight into a deluge. We had to slow right down as it was hard to see very far ahead.

Copyright Zazzle.

A little while later we came out the other side somewhat bedraggled and drove into Gawler in serene sunshine! We stayed on the Main North Road rather than take the highway and tootled along into Adelaide and straight into another rainstorm which was waiting for us there. It’s not much fun driving in a strange city on an arterial road with a lot of traffic, trucks and buses, with the windscreen wipers not coping and the caravan bucking in the wind! But there was nobody to give us sympathy, so we drove on, depending on the lovely Serena to set us on our course if we missed a turn.

By the time we got to the Levi Caravan Park in the north-east of Adelaide the sun was shining once more. Having heard on the news that the weather was going to get even more robust, we politely declined to be put under one of their massive gum trees. We were glad we did because the weather deteriorated by the hour.

As we were about to enter civilisation again (and many Adelaidians would contend that we had already entered civilisation!), we had arranged to get our hair attended to. Joke was going to have her natural colours brought out, and I needed the usual dewhiskering. 

The new natural Joke

We were recommended to a nearby shopping centre. The weather was now not only nasty and wet but cold as well and we thought deep and long about the folly of leaving the northern half of the continent.

Be-clipped and be-cut we slunk back to the caravan with our metaphorical tails between our legs and turned the heater on and watched the storm swirl around us outside.