And with one bound they were free....

We thought that we were reasonably relaxed as we slept in the swamp, but in truth both Jim and Liz had separate dreams - including that we would wake up to find the campervan submerged to it sills. Liz even dreamt at one point that someone came to start digging us out - but as this was at 2.30am, I convinced her it was a dream not reality!

The noise overnight was fantastic - thousands of croaking frogs - just to reinforce the fact that we were in a bog!

Jim kept his eye out for early rising grey nomads, and the first one (up at 6.30am). A quick chat, and Joe, as he was called was only too happy to pull us out. Once he had packed up his tent he was straight over in his 4 wheel drive land cruiser and pulled us out about 7.15am before he went on his way.

He had all the stuff - a tow rope, shackles etc, and it only took 60 seconds to pull us out - or as his wife colourfully described it to Liz "A piece of piss" - we in the UK might say a piece of cake!.

If nothing else it brought the whole campsite together - they all gathered around to watch it - and I think were glad that we were being towed - rather than asking them to push us in the swamp!.

In terms of repayment, Joe said "Its Karma mate" - so we need to repay the act of kindness at some time - we have already saved an Echidna and picked up a hitch hiking cyclist stranded with a flat tyre many miles from home - perhaps it was Karma repaying us! I also suspect that Joe, who had been on the road for 4 months now, secretly enjoyed being able to put the equipment he carries around with him to good effect - whats the point of carrying around a tow rope for 6 months if you don't get to use it!

Now we really understand why it's important to get to the camp site before dark even if you don't have to pitch a tent!

Having being pulled out, we passed the time of day with other grey nomads (one of which used to work in Leeds), had a leisurely breakfast and then set off to find a catholic Church 5km down the track at Glenn Innes.

Surveying the stuck van

Take the strain

Free!