We are staying in our first caravan park of the trip.
The park is small – you can walk around it in about four minutes and has the distinct feel of the good old days. No kids club, no big waterslides, no silly wi-fi.
It’s lovely actually.
Looking around the parks population, I think statisticians may consider us an outlier. I didn’t see any particular deal for people born in 1940’s, but maybe there was something in the fine print.
Interestingly, our assigned location in the park helps propagate this sense of difference – closest to the front of the park with a thin band of tropical garden between the main road and us. Luckily it’s quiet road, with little traffic. On the other side, there is a large area of vacant spots, nice and grassy, before a road that represents some sort of border because above it are closely parked caravans, beautifully aligned, almost uniformly white and shining in the early morning sun. It awakes slowly, each resident dealing with some level of incapacitation in their own unique way – the hobble, the shoulder hunch, the walking stick, the bandy leg – as they make their way to the ablutions.
I am not sure what the most complicated form of music is – maybe something like avant-garde jazz, but for an aural mixture of intense complexity, pop yourself in the caravan park ablutions block from sun-up. It’s hard to work out exactly which part of the body is eliminating what piece of waste. The most intriguing part is the involuntary groans and sighs amongst the uncontrolled farts, burps and gurgles as last nights apricot chicken splashes down. Of course, it is peak hour, so often each of the cubicles will be used, so you find yourself waiting. Sure enough, the door unlocks and out emerges the victor from what has sounded like some kind of violent dispute between mind and body. There’s a simple raised eyebrow, and small shake of the head, occasionally the understatement ‘that’s better’.
I’m not sure why, but of all the accommodation types, it seems that caravan park inhabitants need the most reminding of what can and can’t be done. It’s almost impossible not to turn one way or another and have some small, laminated sign, usually made up of a variety of mismatching fonts, directing you to not dump this, not leave this, not drink this or not eat this.
But the most heinous of crimes, based on frequency of sign, urgency of font and number of exclamation marks is dumping anything other than toilet paper in the dunnies. I’d hate to see what actually happens to someone caught trying to surreptitiously slip a non-toilet paper item down the john in one of these places. Water boarding would be a good start, if only you were actually allowed to use the water for torture, but nope, there’s a sign for that as well.
Big Country 