Stingrays and Smashed Toes
The first thing to greet us on our arrival at The Basin was a three foot long goanna. Actually that's not quite true. The first thing to greet us was Tony, Natali and Jasmine who had arrived the previous evening. The second thing to greet us was a three foot long goanna. The third thing to greet us following hard upon the second (not coincidentally) was a group of small boys armed with tent poles. Briefly and surprisingly convincingly Tony slipped into the role of responsible adult and spoke quietly to the children. We didn't hear what was said, honestly officer, but I'm sure it was something along the lines of the sanctity of all life and the importance of biodiversity and not at all to do with where those tent poles might get shoved if the goanna got hurt.
So there we were in The Basin just us, a goanna and four hundred odd other people who had had the same idea. The sun shone brightly as we erected our tents. Tony very kindly helped me erect mine and by that I mean I helped him erect mine and by that I mean he erected mine while I tried not to get in his way. Once it was done I posed shirtless, Putin style, in front of the tent so a photo could be sent to a work colleague to try and convince her I was a rugged outdoorsman. Naturally she didn't believe it for a second.
With tents up and air mattresses agonisingly inflated with a hand pump (oh the humanity) we all sat back to enjoy coffee and make personal comments about each other. My share of this consisted of remarks about my toenails which I will freely admit are disgusting. After that we (by which I mean, I) remarked on the amount of wallaby shit about the place. We tried not to walk on it at first but you would have needed to be able to levitate to avoid it completely. There was a beautiful tree lined escarpment at our backs which we ignored completely but the water was closer so Idette and Natali herded the children towards the beach while the menfolk (which can loosely be considered to include me) lolled around in fold up chairs. Once the attractions of lolling were exhausted Tony went for an afternoon nap and I headed sandward to find the swimmers.
Nobody was swimming. The kids were attempting to bury each other in the sand while Natali and Idette sat at the waters edge. Natali had been stung by something while swimming and it didn't seem to be getting any better so she hobbled to the rangers station for attention. Jason and I wandered over there more, it must be admitted, out of curiosity than sympathy to learn that she had been attacked by a stingray. Could we please go back to our camp and fetch the first aid kit and, if possible, Tony. Since the only first aid supplies the rangers station seemed to have was a bucket of warm water that Natali's foot was currently resting in we acknowledged the need and headed back to the camp as fast as we could amble.
Once there we woke Tony and explained the situation. He pointed at the first aid kit and went back to sleep. In his defence he thought we were joking. After all, except in b-grade horror movies, what husband expects his wife to get mauled half to death by a sea monster on a family camping trip. It also says something about the relationship between the three of us that neither Jason nor myself were particularly surprised that Tony thought we made the whole thing up. We woke him again perhaps a little less gently and convinced him of our sincerity or at least we convinced him to come and see if we were lying.
By the time we got back to the ranger station the stingray barb had been removed by the skillful application of warm water. Jason and I left Natali in the care of her husband and wandered off to get ice. I'm not sure where Idette was at this moment but presumably somewhere near the children. We fetched the ice which is to say Jason fetched the ice and I accompanied him and returned to the camp. Jason poured the ice into the esky at which point Idette came unloaded the esky and repacked it so adding the ice would actually do some good. Tony and Natali hobbled gamely into view (that is Natali hobbled gamely, Tony's game hobbling moment would come later) and subsided gratefully into chairs. Peace descended, briefly.
Jake was mad keen on soccer and had brought a ball with him. It was the work of a moment for him to be with a group of other small boys also mad keen on soccer. Two of those small boys were Jason and Tony. A vigorous game with shouts, screams and exultant howls was soon underway. At least, that's what it sounded like, I must admit I wasn't really watching. Then I realised at least one of the howls wasn't exultant after all. Jason had stubbed Tony's toe and by stubbed I mean broken. At some point in proceedings Abigail, Jason and Idette's youngest had fallen and scraped her knee but in between stingray attacks and football injuries I'm afraid I can't even remember when that happened.
As late afternoon approached we started talking about the children's dinner. Actually we were talking about putting them to bed but the parents assured me that feeding them was a necessary part of that process. We wanted to be able to bag a barbecue before the rush and the sky was looking a little less friendly so we wandered over to the cooking area with an esky full of barbecuables. This turned out to be wise as shortly after we turned up the heavens opened and it started hammering down with rain. Saturated people turned up to try and cook but we had already staked our claim.
Cooking food on a barbecue is the sort of alpha male thing I tend not to be very good at. Natali agreed that I was more of an omega male an assessment I would have argued with if I had a leg to stand on. Unfortunately Tony didn't have a leg to stand on either and Jason was still recovering from something I really hope is non communicable so I wound up doing the cooking. There were no lights in the barbecue area and with the sky now blacker than my soul cooking consisted of throwing things on the hot plate and attempting to guess when they might be ready. I achieved a modest success by cooking the meat until it was firm and the vegetables until they were soft and to date none of us have died so I'm counting it as a win.
Wallabies apparently fell from the skies during the rain. There were none before the rain but the place was littered with them afterwards. They were everywhere most of them being eagerly pursued by small children. The wallabies were good sports and let the kids approach quite close before hopping out of range and starting the game over again. With the rain over we squelched back to our campsite to survey the damage. I discovered a small pond in my tent. Jason and Idette warned me the tent leaked but actually it hadn't, rather the fly at the back had come loose and flopped against the tent wall ruining its waterproof integrity. Despite the amount of water inside the tent things weren't so bad. The air mattress would float if enough water got in and everything that needed to stay dry was on the air mattress (I have been camping before). Some energetic soaking and wringing work with a towel mopped up the worst of it and I was ready to settle down after dinner.
My first task was to make my little contribution towards stopping the children from killing each other by painting their nails. I gave each of them (at their own request) a fetching shade of dark blue. Hopefully it will be removed before they go to school or child minding. If it isn't I hope at least that the children have enough presence of mind not to tell their teachers or minders that it was applied by a single, forty five year old male on a camping trip. After that we hopped them up on sugar from marshmallows, excited them with sparklers and sent them to bed. A couple of glasses of wine and a cigar or two later and the rest of us followed suit.
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