After Lottie’s first night camping, we didn’t leave the cacheMobile until rather late (I blame whoever had poured red wind down my throat the night before – Mark?). Lottie had slept VERY well, having her little dog dreams on the human bed since Scott wasn’t there. When we finally did emerge I was in quite a chipper mood, and that was soon made chipperer by an invitation from our neighbour, Swampy, to join him for breakfast in his First Class Camping Kitchen. I brought over my stove (not needed – Swampy had 2 going), my coffee and maka express (which I used, although his kitchen is so well supplied he offered me coffee even thought he doesn’t drink it), yogurt, and granola. I also brought Lottie’s dog food, but after bacon the night before she just wasn’t interested! Chez Swampy one has courses even for brekkie, so after I’d finished my yogurt and granola I was treated to a bit of Swampy’s scrambled bacon and egg special – yum! After brekkie we compared camper set ups – always interesting!
In my disorganised cacheMobile packing the morning before, I’d stowed my toiletries SOMEwhere but didn’t know where. If I didn’t find deodorant soon I wasn’t going to be very popular at the event, so Lottie and I headed off to Penguin for some supplies – and a chance at two caches, Penguin Parade and REVELL. For some bizzare reason I also decided to get a sausage roll for Lottie as she hadn’t had any breakfast; she later was interrupted from eating it by Mr deegees giving her TWO steaks!
We got back to Pioneer Park in time for the event (well, how could we be late – we’d gotten there 17 hours early after all) and started eventing! We bumped into Sog n Paulus first, who were chatting to a new cacher, gargeo. We FINALLY met and chatted to sirius Tas, met part of Boagzratz, saw Mr and Mrs 5commer3 arrive on their bike, saw the CarrollEyre clan again, saw the Cheesy Pigs, 3daygrowth, etc etc etc. The weather was a bit on the damp and overcast side, however the chins were wagging. The deegees had even organised a photographer from The Advocate to come, so we all smiled a ‘yummy’ (so Lottie would look at the photographer) so the event could be reported in the muggle news.
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The weather had conspired to make our plans to attack one of the peaks in the Dial ranges undesireable – tracks would be a bit slick and there wouldn’t be much view! So when the event was winding down to the hard-core eventers, robtas asked me if I’d like to go do a couple caches with him and jantas. I was all for it – however then Mr deegees offered me 3 finds so I must admit I went with him! I put Lottie in my lap so her feet wouldn’t muddy the seats, Daemo got into the back seat, and we were off to Flipping Hek, Blazing Saddles, and vampires be waitin inside. Despite the overcast weather and how dim the day had become as we headed towards night, it was beautiful country to go for a drive through. And we were rewarded by the ‘moo’ of cattle at each cache stop.
When we returned to Pioneer Park I was pleased to see that some non-campers were still there, sirius Tas (who unfortunately did no stay for dinner) and the CarrollEyre Clan (who happily did stay for dinner!). I wound up scamming food off people, first some yummy spaghetti from CarrollEyre and then some yummy jacket potatoes with cheese, etc from Mrs deegees. Really everyone – I CAN cook! Lottie did well for herself again, consuming as much of the deegees’s leftover BBQ as we would let her. It was a happy confusion of kids and dogs and chatting cachers. Eventually the CarrollEyres went home, the younger of the geoskid team showered and went to bed, as did the deegees grand-geo-kids, and some tired but happy adults stayed up for a while, warm by the fire in the hut. Jantas even chased all the water molecules out of a pair of Jack’s socks. We all went to bed a bit earlier than the night before, tired after a great geocaching event!