Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well, I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of my prayer for a caravan site. Welcome to miracles in the 21st century.
I'm Dr. John Ashton. A few years ago our children grown up, my wife and I decided to do a trip round Australia towing a little caravan so we could have economical accommodation in caravan parks.
We set off from the east coast of New South Wales and travelled down through Victoria, South Australia, across to Western Australia and then up the west coast of Western Australia. We got to a beautiful spot called Coral Bay. And as we pulled into the caravan park we noticed there were a lot of caravans there.
And we were informed by the lady at the desk that we were very, very lucky that we got one of the last sites available. I think she said there were just two sites available and fortunately we only had a little caravan cause there were only very small sites that were left. I was surprised at so many people and she reminded me that there were so many older retired people travelling around Australia in caravans, the people are called grey nomads that most of the sites booked out.
And she asked where are you heading to? And I said well next major stop we're heading up to is Broome. And she said well have you booked into a caravan park up there? And I said well no, we hadn't, we just saw it turning up. And she said well I don't like your chances.
She said it's very, very crowded and people book out a year ahead and at least months ahead because this was during the wintertime when the weather is more pleasant and away from the rainy season. So it's very crowded. Well, we really enjoyed our stay at Coral Bay and we drove on and visited some other sites and eventually arrived in Broome.
And as we drove into Broome we saw this great long line of parked carri near the information centre. So we found a spot and we parked and we walked in and it was crowded. There were a lot of people there and I overheard they had a number of receptionists.
I overheard one of the receptionists saying well hang on, all the parks are full, the showground is full. We're now putting into the sport table near the police station. And I thought well this is ridiculous.
And I went back and spoke to my wife and I had the impression I was impressed. Why don't you go in and actually go to the caravan parks and check that they are really full. And so we prayed that God would provide us with a caravan place.
Now the Top caravan park in Broomall. In my view, the most desirable one is the one at Cable Beach. It's on a very famous beach just out out of Broome a little bit where they have camel rides and it's a beautiful long, long beach and you can watch the sunset and so forth.
So I said to my wife, well let's go to the best caravan park first and then we'll work our way down. And on the way there, looking at a map, a printed map, I noticed that there was the main road into Broome and then around to Cable beach, but there was a shortcut road across. So I decided to turn down this shortcut road.
I thought, oh, this will save us some, we'll get there a bit quicker. We're driving down this road. The bitumen ended, it became gravel and then we noticed a big high wire fence along the side.
And then we noticed a fence across the road. The road was ending and the gravel turned into this side fenced off area with a big sign up, something along the lines, council waste disposal area. And my wife jokingly turned to me and said, ah, so you're taking me to spend the night at the tip, are you? So I was very disappointed.
Obviously on the map showed a road going through but it hadn't been built. So we turned around and we decided to stick to the main route into the main part of Broome. So we continued on, followed the directions to the caravan park, turned down the street and whoops, there were trees growing out out in front of the sign and I'd just gone a bit past the entrance.
I couldn't turn in. I thought oh okay, I'll back up. But no, with the caravan I couldn't.
I noticed there were several vehicles behind me so I couldn't back up. So I thought, oh no, we'll have to go down, find a place to turn and come down around. So we did found a place where it was wide enough to turn around with our little caravan and come back on the opposite side of the road, only to find he was big signs up, no parking.
So I said to my wife, look, I'm just going to stand here, stay in the car with the engine running, run in and see if there's a vacancy. So my wife hopped out, ran in, it was a little while and came out beaming. And what had happened was as she'd gone into the office, there was just one gentleman on the there in the office and he was on the phone talking and my wife just stood there while I finished the conversation.
He put the phone down asked my wife how can I help you lady and she said I was wondering if she asked if there were any caravan sites available for seven days and the man said to her lady you're in luck that was a phone call cancelling a site for seven days the people can't make it they're not coming now and so we were able to drive in have this site a lovely corner site and having a little van we fitted quite well under a shady tree and the seven nights accommodation in Broome when it was fully booked out I praise the Lord how with the timing he delayed me in a couple of ways I went down a wrong path and then had to backtrack back out and then I missed the turn and had to go down the road and find a place where I turned out and that so synchronised us that we coordinated with the phone call of these other people that were ringing to cancel their sight I'm always amazed at how the Lord can provide and work things out for.
