No Idea

Walkabout Ctrl+Alt+Del

Walkabout has been aborted early, the task was not functioning as it should have and so I have quit. This morning while sucking up some expensive internet at the “Gaol Break Café” (a pun on a local landmark) I received an email offering some easy work from London. I said yes and quickly, gleefully, went to destroy my soggy tent and shove it in a dumpster. I really relished in tearing that $50 tent down, I had been thinking about it for days, it felt really good to be rid of it. My reasoning was that I can afford not to sleep in a leaking, stinking, fly infested tent if I have work. To a hotel I went, which is where I am now.

This post is by way of a summary and a quick cathartic outpouring of what happened to me, out there, in the bush. It’s kind of long and impulsive, I might write up my actual diary of the trip at a later date, but for now this is just my rather disorganised thoughts on the past seven days.

Let me be the first to admit that the trip was a complete disaster from the outset. My daily vocabulary was largely reduced to muttering the following phrases to myself; “awful”, “just my luck”, “disgusting”, “so expensive”, “f@ck off flies”, “please stop raining”. It has been seven days of complete torment and despair. Every time a small thing could go wrong, it did go wrong. Granted nothing big went wrong which is good but when you find a Huntsman spider under your tent on the first day or find that it will rain every night and your tent leaks it kind of gets to you. Sleeping in the car when you have just spent $50 on a tent to sleep in is like a kick in the nuts. And why did it rain!? Why every day/night!? This is Australia, and its meant to be summer!

Actually, that is not entirely true, although it was hellish and seemed it would never end strangely, sitting here in warm dry comfort, I sort of miss it already. However, that being said here is a list of things that I am newly and truly grateful of:

• Being able to leave my toothbrush out by the sink. For ~17 days I have had to take my toothbrush to the shower room and back to my room or tent. Today was the first day since I got to Australia that I have had a bathroom that is not shared with 20+ others.
• Not having to put money into a box in order to have a hot shower. Sometimes even putting money into the box would not result in a hot shower, it would just eat it. This morning this happened, I only took two 20 cent pieces with me to the shower (a shower is 20 cents for three mins), it ate the first one. I was then faced with the decision: do I try it again and risk having to get dressed again, walk past the Christian kids and go and get more money from the tent, or do I move my carefully stowed (they are placed in the area that is least damp, see next point) clothes and towel to another cubicle and hope that one works. I chose the latter and fortunately it did work, but I only had a three minute shower instead of the six I planned for.
• Not having to find the only place in the shower cubicle which is not soaking wet so I can set down my towel and fresh clothes. Often in a shower cubicle there is no hooks, or just one shitty hook that could not be used for your towel and clothes, so you have to look for the dry spot, the one spot where the ogre before you has not splashed or gotten sand on.
• Not having to wear flip-flops in the shower. Again, for 17 days I have been wearing flip-flops in the shower in order to avoid standing in other peoples’ hair, soap, sand or worse. When you get dressed in the shower cubicle you have to sort of balance on one foot while you put the other through the leg and try not to get your shorts or trousers wet on the floor, I don’t miss this dance either.
• Being able to sleep in late if I have nothing to do. While camping I had to evacuate my bedroom if the sun is shining too much. It was occasionally sunny on my trip, usually first thing in the morning after a long night of rain where I would not sleep much. It was harsh to be finally sleeping soundly and then to have to evacuate because the bedroom had become an intolerable oven.
• Not having to zip and unzip my bedroom door each time I want to leave or enter. It’s nice not to have to worry about flies getting into all my stuff for once. No matter how much Aeroguard one puts on the flies always want to hang out with you or be wherever you don’t want them to be.
• Having something soft to sleep on. Even at the hotel in Sydney the bed was uncomfortable, and the pillows seemed to be made of cement bags. But that did not compare to the new found levels of discomfort to be found sleeping in a tent on five centimeters of urethane foam. I would have bought something better to sleep on but my camp budget was blown on a crappy tent and a mixture of other essentials.

I guess there are a bunch of things I do miss and did appreciate, it was not all completely terrible. Here is my (rather short) list of things I am thankful for experiencing:

• The crazy weird Australian bush dawn chorus. I like dawn choruses but am rarely up early enough to hear them. Being in a tent the sunlight or rain dripping wakes you early enough and boy the Aussie dawn chorus is a riot. The second campsite I went to at Mayall Lakes was brutally outback, even down to the bush long-drop toilet which had flies come up out of it when you lifted the lid. This place, awful as it was, had an amazing dawn chorus. Laughing Kookaburras kicked off first usually, really loud, booming over the frogs and other jungle sounds. Then the Australian Magpies followed in, and then a bunch of other crazy birds I have not identified, including one which sounds like some lasers being fired. It was really cool to listen to.
• Hanging out with Kangaroos. At the last camp site I was at a mob of ‘roos would come and eat around my tent every evening. The bull ‘roos would fight each other, and others would scratch themselves and look like old men.
• Being forced to read. I had nothing else to do for the past seven days other than sit about and read, sleep or eat. I did not get much sleeping or eating done so I read a lot. Got to thank Jo for making me take two of her books, those being The Thirty Nine Steps and Three Men in a Boat. I also listened to a lot of Jeeves and Wooster on my iPod until the battery died. Lots of late 19th / early 20th century banter has been spinning around my head, it was a wonderful diversion.

Well that’s about it for now. I don’t ever want to go camping again, ever. I enjoyed what happened for what it was and have some fond memories but camping for an extended period is generally a bad idea in my book. If it can rain, it will rain and it always can rain.

November 7th, 2007 

Labels: Tags: australia, camping, outback