Werfen - Monday

And so, the camping part of our holiday began.  If you’ve read the previous posts you will know my feelings about this.  I had a lot more feelings about it when, on our drive into Austria, it started to rain.  And it rained A LOT.  Not especially the best weather for putting up a tent.  However, by the time we arrived at the campsite in Werfen – without any problems – the rain had dried up.  I thought that perhaps we were in for a bit of luck.  We were certainly owed it. 

But of course, it was not to be.  We got the first part of the tent put up with the handy trick Hub’s new friend at the manufacturer had taught him.  Hurray, I thought.  And then, the heavens opened.  We had also previously discovered that the aforementioned friend had actually left us the wrong part for the tent.  Instead of the flysheet that attached to the van he had left an additional groundsheet.  Which meant that the top of the tent with its ventilation panels was not going to be much use.  So, we then had to create a cover for the top section with the erroneous groundsheet and some bungees.  In the torrential rain.  By the time it was all finished we were absolutely drenched.  Even my new, seriously waterproof jacket was wet through. 

It had taken us three hours to get the tent erected.  Which meant that it was now about 10.30 pm and almost pitch black.  Time to start unloading the van.  We couldn’t leave this until the morning because Hub and I were sleeping in it...  Another downside of the missing flysheet is that we couldn’t attach the tent to the van.  This meant we didn’t have direct access to the children and I was a little uncomfortable about it.  Luckily we were all distracted by the discovery of fireflies.  We’d never seen them before and it was magical watching them drifting around the tents.  It salvaged an otherwise miserable evening.  A kindly German man who had his caravan opposite us brought a firefly on a blade of grass to show our eldest daughter.  He spoke very little English, and us very little German, but we managed a small conversation as we watched the fireflies.  Then, as our youngest pointed out another one in the grass, the German man promptly stood on it.  Oops.  It was time for bed.

After messing about with collapsing seats and redistributing various bits and pieces, we settled down for the night, occasionally opening the door to tell the girls to turn off the torch and get to sleep.  There followed the most uncomfortable night of 'sleep' I have ever had.  I don’t have much problem falling asleep in the car on a journey.  But actually having to spend the night on car seats is a completely different thing altogether.  It was literally seats, laid flat, with a bed sheet over them.  Seatbelts and all.  Between that and worrying about the girls in the tent I got about four broken hours, and woke up to rain still lashing against the windows.