Decided to have a rest after driving over 500km from Coober Pedy to Bon Bon and then to Port August as we needed to catch up on some shopping, laundry, mail etc.
Our venture into the supermarket this morning was slightly different to our normal shopping back home.
It seems that no shops west of the NSW border hand out free plastic shopping bags. User pays: ten cents, fifteen cents, one dollar. Or take your own. We always forget to bring bags with us...which hasn't been much of an issue as we normally only buy a few dollars worth of things which we can carry between us, without the need for bags. That is until today because we needed to do a much bigger shop before we head off to the west.
Realising that we needed to bring our own bags or pay for them Andrew went back to the car and salvaged a few plastic bags that we'd saved to reuse as garbage bags. But as we were going through the cash register we realised that we didn't need shopping bags because all our groceries would be packed straight into the back of the car. The woman behind the cash register kindly obliged by putting our groceries straight into our trolley and we proceeded to the car park after we'd paid for our groceries.
In the middle of the carpark we put away our groceries, fruit and veg and meat, just as if we were in our kitchen at home.
Hope no one was watching as we split up our meat trays into smaller meal sized portions and packed them into the freezer! Everything went into its own special spot...that's the thing when you're living out of the back of a car, a place for everything and everything in its place.
It was quite difficult in the first week or two, having to rummage through the back seat of the car every time I wanted a change of clothing, a towel or toiletries but then I just told myself that I have to imagine that the back seat of the car is my wardrobe, just like my wardrobe, the back of the car has a door which I open to get to my things.
The back-back of the car...the under-the-canopy part is our kitchen, in it we have a "pantry", a "fridge", a "freezer", a washing up "sink", and a kitchen "cupboard". There's also a gas stove, pots and pans, cutlery...
The secret is to ALWAYS put things back EXACTLY where you got them. And immediately.
It's amazing how much you can do without if you have to.
It's also amazing how tempting it is to buy that extra little gadget when shopping.
For example, I've brought along a wire strainer because I know it can double up as a flour sifter. Yet, every time I've been into a supermarket over the past four weeks I've spotted those whiz- bang stainless steel sifters that seem to shout at me; "Buy me! Buy me" and I almost do until I remember I don't want 'another' sifter mostly because I don't have the space for it.
I wonder how many items I have at home that all do the same basic job and because space isn't an issue I've never stopped to think about it?
After we finished packing away our groceries, we had morning tea on the foreshore and ate up all the little bits and pieces that were getting close to their use by date...two types of cheese, some crackers.
And I found ten cents.
When we were at Boyd Town I found a fifty cent coin in the sand on the beach. Initially I thought it was a shiny pebble but when I picked it up I could see it was a coin. It was the colour of bronze and I thought it was a penny but then realised it was a fifty cent piece that may have been in the sand for a very, very long time.
A few days later, as we were walking to the train station to go to Melbourne for the day, Andrew found a five dollar note in the gutter. A few days after that I found five cents and then another ten cents.
So I'm hoping that for the rest of our trip we keep finding money...hey maybe even a hundred dollar note!
And on that note, I'll say goodnight.
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