Wednesday is washing day

For a family of four, we don’t do too badly when it comes to mountainous piles of washing. They used to be more like mole hills scattered in every room of our house piled neatly in the washing basket.

Laithe NEVER wears undies (don’t ever offer to hold a ladder for him) so that cuts out a little bit of washing but Emerson has been making up for it by weeing in his undies every 2.5 seconds.Toilet training. Ugh.

He has his father’s bladder.

Thankfully Georgie is not one of those kids who changes her clothes 5 times a day. And although I like to put something fresh on each day, I’m quickly getting used to wearing things several a couple times over.

Do you know how expensive it is to do a load of washing in most caravan parks?
Back in Mandurah, they charged me 3 BUCKS to squeeze about 1kg of washing into a tiny machine, waste my detergent & have my clothes come out dirtier than when they went in.
That was nearly 3 months ago & since then, with the exception of our few week stint in Albany, I have HAND. WASHED. EVERYTHING.

Clothes. Towels. Sheets. Mattress protectors. The lot.

And because I’m somewhat of a nutcase, I may or may not have been doing a fabric softening rinse where required!
WHAT!? It makes it smell & feel cosy & clean even if it isn’t!

A washing machine is one thing the van didn’t come with.

On the upside, hand washing is bloody good exercise.
AND my hands are SO CLEAN.
But on the down side, I’m over it. O-v-a-h!
Alas, my already elderly looking hands have aged another 10 years in the last 2 months.

We’ve been mostly bush camping lately. It’s WAAAAAY cheaper, if not free, & you get to stay places most people would never even know existed.

Cheyne Bay, Cape Riche.


But it means carrying our own water & being pretty conservative with it so the washing kinda piles up, & up, & up.

I also get to sit on things like this…



If I stared at it long enough I could have easily made myself vomit. It’s just bore water stains… but ew!
Fortunately, keeping an eye out for snakes, goannas & giant cockroaches took my mind off it.

Having our own island for the day helped too.

Cheyne Island


The “facilities” at our next camp were far too rough to even photograph so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
The aroma was…um… breathtaking.

As was the view.



But when we rolled into Esperance Seafront Caravan Park today, all salty & tacky from the sea & sun cream, I was a little bit excited to find a giant Speed Queen washing machine @ $2 a load & an even bigger dryer @ I DOLLAR AN HOUR!!! ONE DOLLAR!
My idea of ironing is shaking the shit out of the wet clothes before I hang them on the line, so to be able to use a dryer was just like real ironing.

I was probably a little bit too excited.
But what ever!

The toilets flush, everything’s clean & smells fresh, I’ve washed my hair after 4 days, I have electricity, phone reception & fresh water that comes straight out of a tap, & all is right with the world. For tonight.

Tomorrow we hit the dirt again & I go back to rinsing pissy undies out 12 times a day & grating my soggy knuckles off trying to scrub fish guts & stink out of Georgie’s t-shirts.

Sometimes there just isn’t enough Napisan.

I think all I need now, to look the part, is to get me a washboard, some rollers for my hair, one of those plastic aprons with the giant pockets, & a couple of massive boosies that sit on my elastic waistband & wobble when I scrub.


What have I learnt so far?

• I hate sun cream! It stains everything & no amount of knuckle grating can get it out.

• Blokes can NEVER hang washing out properly. You're sposed to fall over yourself congratulating them for actually doing it then I come out to find a bloody great peg mark in the crutch of my shorts!

• Hanging sheets in windy Albany was almost like parasailing!