29 and 30 Mar 2011
Richmond to Port Arthur
“Five bars!” I shouted. “Four bars! Oh Oh – now only two bars – keep driving!” This is me calling out the status of our internet connection as Gina is driving us around the Port Arthur Holiday Park. We pulled in here yesterday, pleased as punch with the park-like setting we found ourselves in after so many previous days and nights of staring at neighboring derelict caravans. But not here. Here is like strolling through Lincoln Park on a gorgeous Fall day, the water in view, the trees leaves hinting at the colder temperatures to come. Here is like the paradise of camping grounds: a plug-in for our orange umbilical, free hot showers, and a campervan surrounded by grazing wallabies as dusk settles around us like a blanket of downy feathers under a harvest moon.
Only one small problem that we hate to even mention, given that it’s free and, like my morning coffee, a drug we often crave here out on the road – the wi-fi. You see, we’ve been given the best campervan site in the park in every regard except one – we cannot connect to the free wi-fi from here. Now we can connect to it from the campground kitchen but there are two small problems associated with that: (1) we’re kinda burned out on the communal kitchens with their communal noise and (2) there is a gaggle of 10-yr-old Catholic School children here on a field trip that have taken over the place, further increasing the amount of communal noise to a decibel level fit only for those accustomed to waving in jets to their designated parking spots. So we have decided that if the wi-fi won’t come to our van, then our van will go to it. I’m sure no one thinks it’s odd that there are two women circling around the campground – lurching, actually, in places, as this is a manual transmission – in a white, nameless campervan shouting at one another. I mean, this is Australia, where no one even checks your ID before you board a plane.
Before we began our wi-fi safari, we had spent an enjoyable day transporting ourselves here from Richmond, as well as wandering about the peaceful grounds of the Port Arthur Historic Site. This Tasman Peninsula is quite scenic and sleepy, our perfect cup of tea.
