Day 48 - Ketapang Borneo - Building bridges in the rain

With a current shortage of milk in the whole of Ketapang, I have resorted to eggy bread for breakfast. It seems to keep me partially full till lunchtime. It started to rain before we left this morning so we left the buckets out to catch rain water which we uses to wash our clothes as it is actually clear rather than the water out of the Mandy or the tap. 

The order of the day was bridge completion and hole digging for the electric fence posts, which will surround the island as a deterrent. I opted for bridge duty as I haven't actually seen one through to completion yet. Helen, Aleta, Noel and I set off tools in hand. We all got into a great rhythm and nailed most of the boards on. We even won a magnum challenge. 

Each day Noel sets a magnum challenge, so we have had first person to bleed from and injury, first person to cry walking over precarious logs etc... In return we get a magnum ice cream on the way home from work. Today's challenge was to get 22 foot boards down by the time Noel cycled back to logistics to pick up some spanners. We managed 23! 

After lunch we chose to go back to the island as we were on a role. Just as we crossed the log onto the island the heavens opened. There was nothing we could do but battle on. Suddenly it stopped but you could see it raining still the other side of the moat. Like a wall of water. I looked up and noticed another wall headed straight for us, you can see it coming and it's loud. 

By the time we made it to the bridge we had been working on we were drenched, we had to keep emptying our boots out. My waterproof eventually gave up and stopped working as it was just so heavy. There wasn't really much we could do but ride it out so we sat there in the rain waiting. Noel headed back to get bin bags to put the stuff in so we could get it back to camp dry including the generator.

After about half an hour Noël returned and the rain stopped. It's amazing how quickly you start to dry once you get back into working. I managed to drop a board corner first on Aleta's toe, hopefully it won't bruise too much. We did a bit more uggerbuggering, drilling and securing bolts before we realised how late it was. However, we we're determined to board this bridge to so we set to it. Eventually we let work at 17:30. It was a long day.

Due to the weather my evening consisted of a shower and hair wash and some washing! Living the dream :)