Camping it up

I went camping. I learnt things. Most of all that I need to take my camera and to actually take pictures with it. Not of the wildlife or the majestic landscape mind you. Mostly I wanted to take photos of hilarious ads that I can’t find on Google. My favourite was of the billboard advertising its services as a billboard with a model whose look of excitement could also be a freeze frame of her suffering an Epileptic grand mal. Also of this amazing service station. No really, it has a replica of the Matilda Kangaroo that used to be at Wet n Wild, and an island covered in Ibis and only Ibis. Please, send them your overcooked chip-nubs and croissant flakes soon, they need it.

        

We spent the first night out near Bundaberg, which I’ll remember mostly for the number of broken noses I came across, as well as a large cement bible I saw once then never again. Also; TRAVELLER’S ALERT; there’s a certain family-owned petrol station just out of town you’d do well to avoid. We got there at dinner time, which involved the whole family having their dinner, typically, on their dining table, situated just outside the front door.  When I walked past one of them charmed me with the welcoming sobriquet of “hey you!”, then the too-familiar “you!”.  It was a little bit “The Hills Have Eyes”, or “Dying Breed”. I made it out obviously, but I suspect only because it isn’t fruit-pie season yet. Consider yourself warned.
           
My actual destination was 1770, a coastal town so numerically titled due to it’s being the second landing site of Captain James Cook. Interesting fact: they actually changed the name of the place from Round Hill in 1970, in honor of said captain. That’s all from Wikipedia, since any actual sense of history was nowhere to be seen; just old Queenslanders, fibro shacks and new-fangled estates. The whole place is so laid-back it feels like it’s moving back in time—literally. Many of the new estates have been abandoned mid-construction.

The actual camping part of the deal was fine. Mainly because I didn’t have to organize any of it, just a lot of “do this” and “do that” and eventually “leave it and sit over there and don’t touch anything.”  Although having a dog was stressful. It was attached by a 20m long cable to a tree. This meant that it could walk the radius of the site. Or, as was the case, pelt across it, turning the 20m metal cable into a mobile trip wire. Night times were especially fun. There’d come a warbling of a bush-turkey, the growl of the dog, then the sudden pull and snap of the wire. Often straight over the tent. I’m surprised it didn’t clothesline the whole thing off.
          
Then there was the typical stuff; beaches and beers. I scalded my feet on sand, got burnt in strange places, crafted a façade of Aussie masculinity while driving a ute, only to spoil it all by screaming like a two-bit pansy while overtaking. So close. Then again, if the Orangutan armed boys of Gympie are a model of ideal manliness in those parts, I’ll take a pass. They were all fists and elbows, looking lost without a good community center to loiter outside of. Call me a big city priss if you must, but I prefer my children to drink their Rumbos post 11am, thank you very much.