Not Quite The Easter We Had Planned

It was the weekend before Easter and the house sitters had arrived, the camping gear was packed and we were all set for 10 days of camping right through till Easter Monday.

We were camping at the Bunya Mountains about 2 hours west of our place so it was not a long trip but as we arrived the weather looked like taking a turn for the worse.  So we set about getting the tent up as quick as we could.  But the weather did not hold and pretty soon we were setting up the tent in the rain and getting quite wet in the process.  But by the time we had the tent up the sun was shinning again so we were able to let it all dry out.
Later that afternoon the clouds rolled back in and the temperature dropped from 24 degrees to 15 degrees so we rugged up and in the end had an early night.  However I woke up  in the middle of the night to discover our tent was leaking (it must need a new spray with water proofing spray).  So in the middle of the night we were outside rigging up an additional tarp over the rear of our tent which was not that easy with the wind blowing and the rain bucketing down.

The next day was still wet with cold mist blowing up the side of the mountain and visibility was reduced to about 50 meters.  We decided that we would just rug up and get out and tackle some of the bush walks that we had planned to do.  Hubby has been off work with 3 tears in his knee ligaments since January so we decided to tackle an easyish 4km walk.  Even among the trees it was very misty and we were quite wet by the time we finished.

After a warm shower we again rugged up and I tried to get in some reading but it was too misty and the pages of my book were threatening to curl up so I retreated inside the tent and into bed where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening.
After dinner our tarps kept collapsing as the pegs holding the ropes were pulling out of the very soggy ground.  Then the wind picked up.  All night we were up and down trying to secure the tarps and not getting much sleep at all.
In the morning we set it all up again and basically repeated the previous days events with another bush walk and an afternoon spent in the tent.
That night the wind picked up again and we had a second sleepless night trying not to get blown off the mountain and trying to keep things upright.  Sometime in the early hours of the morning the entire tarp collapsed over the front of our tent effectively trapping us inside.  Hubby pushed his way out and use our 2 eskies to weight things down and to stop the tarp flapping so much in the wind.

In the morning we got up to discover that the eskies had been flipped over by the wind and our food was scattered across our campsite.  It was at this point Hubby declared he was done and he was not spending any more of his time off with me battling the elements.  I think I could have stuck it out and waited for the weather to clear but with a cyclone off the north Queensland coast we were not really sure if the weather would clear.

Anyway to cut a long story short we packed up and headed home to explain things to our house sitters who thankfully were able to use the time to go and visit friends.

As it turned out the weather cleared a few days later and was glorious for the rest of the time we had off but that is just how things go sometimes.  In the end we had some relaxing days at home, as well as one at the beach, punctuated with jobs that we had not had a chance to do before so it all worked out ok.

How was your Easter - How Did You Celebrate?