Back from camping...

...and I feel sort of cheated that someone didn't hand me a medal.

We went up to Warburton for the Melbourne Cup Day "Long Weekend". (For those of you not in the know, The Melbourne Cup is Australia's biggest horserace, and in Melbourne we actually have a public holiday for it--the first Tuesday in November--however, just about everyone takes the Monday off as well). The Caravan park was tent city when we arrived, but by lunch time Sunday, after it had been raining for 12 hours non-stop, about half the campers had pulled up their tent pegs and gone home for a hot bath.

We couldn't face the idea of packing up in the rain and going home after all the effort we had made to get there, so we stayed on. We managed to make sure that at least the "bedroom" of the tent stayed dry, and we retreated to a local cafe for four hours to regain our composure and dry out a bit. And yesterday and today were really pleasant.

We went with a Baptist (? They attend a Vineyard Church) couple and their children. Their oldest child is in Mia's class at the local Catholic Primary school and we get along with them very well.

Cathy and I went to Mass at Sacred Heart in Warburton on Saturday night. As we were walking back to the Caravan park, she said: "You know, I have come to appreciate the no-nonsense way that Catholics do church. You go there for a purpose, they do it, and you go home."

Here is a picture of our campsite on Saturday when we arrived:

And here is a picture of the mud that it became over the next few days...