Day 65

Wednesday 5^th January 2011

Hands up if you like waking up in a tent with the sun blazing in, at 05:30, with a march fly buzzing around your head???

Yep, me neither, but that’s the situation I found myself in on this hot and humid Aussie day, I woke up breathless, dripping in sweat with a banging headache and with eyes that appeared to have been glued together in the night, I fought my way out of the tent and bleary eyed, staggered over the sand and into the sea, praying that Jaws was having a lie in. I ventured in as far as my knees and threw the cold water all over me, then I washed my face and sat on the beach taking in the morning air.

On a beach on the other side of Australia almost thirty four years ago the reigning Prime Minister – Harold Holt - did exactly the same thing apart from that fact that he decided to take a swim instead of have a wash, a swim, as it would turn out, that required no towel. He swam out 100 metres or so and without so much as a lazy wave, he vanished, never to be seen again. I decided against the swim and headed back to the tent to see if I could get Suz to slide out of her sleeping bag.

Buy the time I returned to camp about 6 ish, people were up and about, the breakfast ingredients were out and I helped myself to a choc chip muffin and some orange juice. Suz – who had slept with clothes on (!) - asked if it was cooler out of the tent than in it, I can imagine a chicken asking the same question about an oven.

We finished breakfast and washed last night’s dishes, I dug a hole for the dirty water so as not to attract any Dingos,

then we packed up the jeeps and headed for our first stop of the day, lake Allom.

It didn’t have a beach like the others we had seen, instead it had steps. The water was brown and not very inviting, Hans informed us that this is due to the large number of Tea Trees that line the lake, their oil seeps into the water making it brown but actually very good for the skin. Unconvinced, we sat on the edge where turtles came up to greet us,

there was also little fish that nibble the hard skin off your feet We submerged our sandy feet into the water and watched the fish get to work on our impromptu pedicure.

We sat for maybe an hour and the fish were still finding bits to nibble on, some people ventured into the lake for a swim, we sat and watched. Then, as more people began to arrive, we went back to the jeeps and set off for Indian Heads, a headland at the end of the western beach where sharks have been seen. This was straight down the highway which is also used as an airport, you’ve got to have your wits about you if you’re going to drive on Fraser (mirror, signal, check the sky, manoeuvre!).

We trekked up the Indian Heads in the searing midday sun, the views were great but unfortunately it appeared that Jaws had not only had a lie in, but taken the whole day off.  We didn’t see so much as a big fish from the headland.

Now, from here we were supposed to go to ‘Champagne Pools’ but it was getting on a bit and it would have taken us the rest of the day to get there and back and we still hadn’t had lunch. We decided against it and instead headed back down the beach to a creek where we could cool off and have a buttie. Myself and Marco (one of the Italians) discovered that we had been working on the same kind of half and half tan on our legs.

We had a bit of a kick about on the beach (notice the beer in hand, classy!)

and then piled in the jeeps, we were going to see the Maheno shipwreck. Suz says it has sunk considerably since she was last here five years ago, we overheard a woman telling her kids that when she last came thirty years ago, there was an upper and lower deck and you could get inside it! We walked around the outside making sure we stayed more than 3 metres away (this is finable too to the tune of $1800) and found some very strange growths on the ships stern.

They were shell fish of sorts that spat out water from a nipple if you touched them, there were people cutting them of to use as fishing bait (very good they are too apparently) and inside they are bright pink, very odd but it amused us for at least half an hour, I had to do some pretty good blocking but I managed to stop the gathered throng of kids having a go until I had finished my fun.

The sun was beginning to fade so we headed further down the beach and found another spot for camping. The camp was a little better than the previous night, we parked the jeeps either side of a big grey tarpaulin, and me and Suz dashed off to find a tree to pitch under so I didn’t have to wake in the same circumstances tomorrow.

We got the stove out and this is where the problems began. The Italians have a reputation for being a little aloof and slightly arrogant. Well, these guys were no different. We had to buy, on their demand, courgettes for the spag bol, as well as peppers for the French and Dolmio for the Brits. We should have seen it coming……

The Italians set about making tea and we thought good, this is bound to be nice, spag bol cooked by Italians. Perfecto.

Well not quite, Stefano, who had elected himself head chef chopped all the veg up (onions, garlic, courgette, tomatoes) and put them in a pan. He then enquired as to whether we had bought salt to cook the pasta in. We hadn’t, but, it shouldn’t be a big deal, after all, were camping right? Wrong!

Stefano - about 1 hour into making spag bol

 

He sent his sous chef off to the sea to collect salt water to cook the pasta in, some people began to question, well, firstly his sanity, then his eagerness to put sand directly into our tea. At this point it also hadn’t gone unnoticed the 2.5 kgs of beef mince was still sat in its bag. An hour in and Stefano is cooking the living shit out of the veg, which has now gone sloppy but apparently still isn’t ready. Then the pasta goes on with a few cupfuls of sea water. Again questions are being asked, why is he putting the pasta on before the mince? Will we get tea before breakfast? What kind of medication is this man on?

After twenty minutes more he starts serving up the pasta and veg slop, he has put the four jars of Dolmio in the middle of the floor as some sort of dip and the mince remains uncooked. Suz, who by this point as had a few mugs of red wine,

storms up to Stefano and demands that he stops serving the pasta up, she says “you’re ruining everything, the pasta is going to be shit, the mince is raw and Dolmio is not a fucking dip!” or words to that effect. It’s now two hours since he started making spag bol and patience is getting pushed to the limit. Stefano tried to explain himself by saying that in Italy you serve the pasta and veg as a starter then you brown the mince for the main. I’m sorry but that sounds bloody awful, who has just mince for a main?

Hans got himself involved in a very quiet and understated way, he just started cooking the mince, once that was done we added the Dolmio, mixed in Stefano’s veg slop and served it up and to be fair it wasn’t half bad, although by this point I would have ate a live Dingo if one would have been fool hardy enough to waltz into camp.

We finished our tea/ supper and carried on tucking into the beers, the music was on, and we chatted and sang into the night.

Again, people began to fade but me and Marco stayed up assuring everyone that we would take care of cleaning up the camp before bed, anything, ANTHING left out will invite Dingo’s into camp. After a sterling effort to finish all remaining alcohol we walked around camp with head torches on and meticulously picked up everything, cig butts, onion peel, the lot. Then we put it all in a bin bag and went to bed, a nice evening (despite “Spag Bol Gate”) had by all and a job well done by me and Marco, or so we thought……..