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The “c” word
I’ve never liked the “c” word, never have and never will, and so it seemed inexplicable that I would submit not once but twice during our travels to invitations go camping. Another “c” word could be held responsible, cousins, for on both occasions the submission came at the hands of this particular line of relative; the first time in England with one cousin and the second, at Easter, with another, Fiona, her partner Gary and two of their friends.
Camping is a phenomenon which is difficult to comprehend; it involves days of planning and preparation, poring over maps, taking trips to the supermarket, collecting cookers, eskies, and icepacks, filling gas bottles, and assembling a collection of tents and sleeping bags, air mattresses, cooking utensils, shovels, lights, tarpaulins and ropes - just to be denied the comforts of home. Not that I lifted a finger, others did it all.
Camping apparently necessitates a 4.15am wake up. The sensible option of sleeping-in at Easter gives way to the daft notion of starting early to avoid road congestion as Perth empties out, and so it was we were on the road at 5.00am. Even at that time the freeway looked like an automobile beauty contest; who has the flashest SUV, whose is most loaded the gunnels and how many canoes can be lashed to roof racks at once?
We had a destination in mind, a place called Sues (yes, no apostrophe) Bridge, about three hours south of the city, in the middle of the Blackwood State Forest, about halfway between Nillup and Nannup. But not Sues Bridge camping spot, that was too orthodox, we headed down rutted tracks to a clearing among the Karri and Jarrah, up the bank from the Blackwood River, and set up home in a private, tranquil little spot. And it was nice, but it may have been an omen to discover that my camera battery was still in its charger back in Perth and, as night drew, my warm clothes, especially washed for the occasion, left in the washing basket. No-one was at all interested in the fresh fruit I had brought; camping is about red meat and onions, baked beans and bodily functions.
Being in a state forest means no fires, and no fishing; curiously, while there was a sign prohibiting procuring Marron, a fresh water crustacean, it went on to limit catch-bags to ten at a time. Our attempts to lure them with prawn tails failed and so we weren’t put to the test of determining whether a ban was consistent with a limited bag. Instead, we stretched out in the languid warmth of the day, listened to the AFL on the car radio, beat the Australians at bush cricket and then a game resembling a cross between petanque and bowls and, at night, thrashed them at cards. A monitor lizard, about 4 feet in length, investigated our camp site and nosed around in one of bags of rubbish, not fazed at all by humans, blue wrens darted about and a fat Kookaburra sat high above us.
If that sounds idyllic, there is another side. Think red Australian dirt which gets everywhere and, when wet, turns to slushy, gritty mud which gets tramped through and penetrates everything. After Fiona managed to become attached to a leech while washing in the river, I decided that stinking like a polecat was preferable to being clean, and the mornings brought a litany of how poorly and uncomfortably everyone slept. It drizzled, then rained, the tarpaulins leaked and little rivers of mud tricked across the canvas groundsheet around our feet. We huddled, played Five-Hundred under gas lights and moved closer together as the weather closed in from all sides. Far from being a restful and pleasant spot, the place became a prison as turns had to be taken to leave the campsite for supplies and exploring the area as someone had to be there all the time to guard against the possibility of light-fingered visitors.
Adversity gives rise to another curious phenomenon; after all the planning and preparation, the travelling and expectation, no-one wants to admit defeat, or even that remaining might not be the brightest of ideas. Certainly not me, the soft city boy in whose honour this whole weekend had been planned.
Thank goodness then for Fiona. She was the one to blurt out what everyone was thinking. With a worsening weather forecast, why stay here when we could be warm and dry at home? The thought of hot showers, toilets and watching the AFL on television instead of listening seemed perfectly logical.
And who was I to argue?