Dude, Where’s my Milk?

And my beer, my port, my bacon, my tomato sauce and my iPhone cable?

So we wake up this morning and I roll out of bed to make the clan some tea. Please note this is not just some tea, this is Imfrikkinstarvingwherethehellsmytea kinda tea. I open up the fridge (eski to Australians) and stare into it for a good 15 seconds. Then I look around the kitchen area and the back of the trailer. Then I ask “Babe, where’d you put the milk?”, to which the answer came back “In the fridge” “Are you sure?” “Yes!” So I stare at the fridge again half expecting miracles to happen, half bemused. “It’s not there. And by the way, there’s no much else it here for that matter either”

Penny drops. Eventually (Hey, it was early and it was a disruptive night, I was tired). Someone bastard had decided to help themselves to a few goodies during the night while we slept not 3 feet away. And they must have been shopping too as a number of our neighbours in the caravan park also had a few things missing out of their fridges/eskis.

My guess is that a few “young people” (really what is this world coming to these days) had been out on the piss/weed, got the munchies and decided that a late night shopping trip through the camp site was just what they needed. The local Woolies was closed at that time anyhow. That’s the limit of my speculation.

I’m really in two minds about this whole incident. On one hand stealing is stealing, no matter what it is and it should not be tolerated. Which is why I guess the the local Sergeant took it very seriously and got statements from all the ‘victims’ as well as questioning a lot of the youth that was out and about at the time. It’s also not great press for the caravan park. If word gets out (yeah, I’m not help much am I?) then there could be a decline in the number of visitors to the camp site. And this town needs as much tourism as it can get – it is still rebuilding after the horrific fires of 2009.

On the other hand, it was a few items of food and drink. Nothing of value was touched and there was plenty around I can assure you. In fact, the iPhone cable that was taken was attached to an iPhone at the time – they left the phone. They even left me a couple of beers. No one was hurt (except for my daughter who had to wait nearly 30 mins for her tea). So it wasn’t really a big deal. I was more just shocked that I couldn’t have my tea ….

The one thing I find interesting is that this type of thing has never happened around here before, Or so I am told. I’ve been camping in many places, in many countries, and have never had anything go missing at all. Until now. I’m going to chalk this one up to experience and count my blessings that nothing of value was taken (insurance would never have paid out for that). Next time we shall be more careful of what we leave lying around.

To those who helped themselves; I hope the bacon was as good as I imagined it would be. Don’t try it again. I’m ready this time.

 

A fiery rant.

Some people are just plain ignorant. Some are just @ssholes. Some are both.

IGNORAMUS:

ig.no.ra.mus  noun

Plural ig.no.ra.mus.es / ig.no.ra.mi

:- an utterly ignorant person

IGNORANUS:

ig.nor.an.us noun

Plural ig.nor.an.us.es

:- an utterly ignorant person, who is also an @sshole.

And now here’s the story, you decide which is appropriate.

Day Trippers

Some people just don’t think of others. We arrived at Boar Gully campsite to find about 40 hikers had made full use of the parking area, and our camping spot. Let me explain. Most of the campsites (I’m not talking bush camping here) are clearly marked out with bollards. The bollards are there to ensure that vehicles do not take up residence in an area where you are to put a tent. In campsites that have spots for camper trailers/caravans, the bollards demarcate the location of where the trailer/caravan is to be set up. In our case, the day trippers had parked several cars in the space reserved for our trailer.

We were very fortunate to have arrived just as they were about to start their walk. A few of the ladies who were not participating in the walk and who we had some words with about moving the vehicles ,suggested that we “just wait a few hours”. Bollocks. Get your people back here and move the vehicles. Eventually I had to run after the group and call them back to move their cars. And they were upset that I had done so! Well, don’t park your vehicles in a spot reserved for camping!

Second rant. A few hours after we had set up camp and were wondering about the campsite and surrounds, we noticed that a fire had been left smoldering in one of the other camping spots. Again, part of the group of day trippers had had lunch in one of the camp spots (nothing wrong with that) and had made a fire (nothing wrong with that either). However, hey had neglected to completely extinguish their fire and one of the logs had rolled free of the fire pit and was smoldering ominously near the base of to tree. I shudder to think what could have been had we not moved it back to the safety of the fire pit and ensured that the rest of the fire was put out with a few liters of water – from a tap not 10m away.

Unattended fires are very dangerous things. And after the horrors of the fires here in Australia in 2009 I am very surprised that some people are still clueless. Unattended fires can wreak havoc in the bush. Bush fire anyone??

Secondly, lots of campers have small kids, like us for example. If you have simply left your fire to go out all by itself then it is highly likely that the coals are still smoldering and extremely hot for hours. If a small child happens to run over/ walk through/play in what looks like a sand pit then a hospital visit is on the cards. Of the 250 burn cases (children) last year, 33 of them were from camp fires.

If you don’t know how to put out a fire properly, or have no idea about the dangers of fires, read this document. Produced by the Queensland Fire & Rescue Service:

https://www.fire.qld.gov.au/communitysafety/freesafetydownloads/pdf/campfire_safety.pdf

National Parks are there for everyone not just you, don’t be a selfish git.

Think about others and the environment next time you go camping.