An Uneventful Camping Trip This tale

This tale begins with a decision to head on a Traralgon to attend the yearly Scouts theatre performance. A Work Colleague of mine has been involved in a theatre performance that involves children and adults, from 4 years old to 60 year olds.

Since Traralgon is about an hour and a half away from where I stay I invited Amit, Avi and Dinesh so we could make a weekend of it and go Camping. We booked tickets for the 2 PM show on Saturday.

Avi at first declined as he was busy and then at the last moment decided – you know what – ill come up just for Friday night. we decided that Traralgon was a bit far for him – so to call a compromise we decided for Friday night we will head half way – we google mapped and found a heap green land in a place called Bunyip

So Friday we night by the time we gathered the herd, had dinner etc. it was about 12-1:00 am when we left – and since Avrill had to be back sat morning he took his car and I took mine. Amit and Avi in Avrills car and myself and Dinesh leading in mine

At about 2:00 we had entered Bunyip State Park. At this point I don’t know if this place is hard to describe or easy to… There was nothing there….. Ok that was the easy description – here is the more detailed one.. think dirt road, single lane, no lights, just dirt and rock flying up as your car drifts, potholes invisible at night, as deep as your foot, wild life and trees.. trees everywhere. The place is a forest. And you drive, no going back.. you keep driving, slow very slow, 30 – 40 kmph since you have no idea what will come out, we see kangaroos alive and dead on the road, silence, we drive – 30 mins into the drive I hear Dinesh yell in the silence RAGGIE RAGGIE RAGGIE…. BANG!!!! The car drifts off road and I yell.. in the rear view mirror I see a Wombat walk away…. What I don’t see is a part of my car fly off…

I continue to drive – since the wombat is ok I assume that my car is too – and now we have been driving for about an hour, still dirt road, no camp sites in vision, nothingness is prevailing and the potholes are getting deeper, with Sticks and large objects on the road often to dodge.. Time is now almost 3 am, and I start hearing my car clicking and cluttering, I say to Dinesh lets stop.. we do.. my bumper is snapped, my rear mudguard is gone.. Avrill and Amit who were behind me tell me a piece of my car fly off and the wombat walked away.. there is some serious cosmetic damage to the car… we assess the situation, notice that none of us have reception and decide to drive on… the front bumper is broken – not much can be done about it. And atm we need to find a place to stay and some reception. We continue to drive and the nothingness continues.

Randomly in the middle of nowhere we see a PERSON staggering drunk on the dirt road.. The book of his car open! We dodge him and continue to drive, Dinesh and myself looking at each other going WTH was that! We drive on now with Goosebumps.. still nothing, no signs of anything. It feels at this point that we are in a horror movie. Darkness, serial killers, no reception, damaged cars.. The thoughts of doom and peril start creeping

Finally about 30 minutes later we see a sign for a Motorbike unloading area and a helipad. We follow this sign as this is the only hope we have.. it leads us down a path where trees are marked to be logged – and the potholes get deeper and shrubs are appearing on the road, as if no one has driven down it in YEARS. We follow it not knowing where it goes. To our avail it ends up in a desolate helipad. We decide at this point that we cannot go on any further. Next to the helipad there was a sitting area and a place we could start a small bonfire..– its almost 4 am and we need to rest.

We started a bonfire, cooked our food, ate and drank all till the wee hours of the morning; we even found had a pet spider. Avrill leaves around 9am and we have a nap for a few hours in the car.

After our 1 hour nap, we woke up and freshened up – we saw the helipad in all its glory, which to be honest wasn’t much, just a bunch of rocks in a circle with dirt everywhere – I look back and am soo grateful no helicopter actually landed.. I think there would have been a mushroom cloud of dust about 20 meters high.

So Amit, Dinesh and myself, freshened up brushed, cleared up, inspected the damage then headed back on the road to Traralgon, it was hot so we stopped by got some coffee and changed into cooler cloths.

Finally got to the show – YES WE MADE IT ON TIME (anyone that knows us won’t believe this) ok ok we were 10 minutes late – but we didn’t miss anything! The show was great fun! It reminded me of the school plays, the jokes were actually funny – I think both Amit and Dishesh were surprised at the quality and effort that went into the show, well planned, brilliantly scripted and a very catchy score. After the show our exhaustion from the night before had disappeared, we resurrected with a new found objective, and that objective was….To find our next Camping ground.

We did some research and found our next habitat for the night. Moondarra State Park.

Now if you thought the first part of this camping trip was interesting, funny and entertaining, this one may feel like Jerry Seinfeld on steroids and a few lines of speed.

We reach Moondarra State Park, to get into the camp grounds a deep decent is required, When we were driving down I was actually scared that my car would not be able to make it up.. with my foot on the brake I descend at 10 kmph slowly, steadily, finally we get to the bottom and the camp grounds. This place looks like nirvana compared to the last helipad we were staying at, there is people (big win), several camp grounds, fire barrels, a lake and cleared land amongst mountains. . we find a free spot – There are about 10 campsites and most look taken.

So we park the car and start setting up tent, D is busy setting up camp, I start unloading the car and we send Amit on a mission to find Fire wood. In the meantime I start talking to the campsite next to us, a very friendly couple from Netherlands, we chat, I borrow the axe and things are pleasant. I continue unloading the car and move to help Dinesh with the tent.

This is when we see Amit walking down with a man carrying a MASSIVE LOG. I kid you guys not I do not see the man carrying it just the log – which appears to be about 5 feet long and thick as a stump. I run over to help the guy, I grab one end and it is ridiculously heavy and covered in Mud. I am barely able to hold it when I have a glimpse of this persons face.

The guy is about 21 years old, and man has no Neck… Just 2 shoulders and a head attached to it. He is about 4 foot 7, stocky and chubby he was wearing a wife beater and smelt like dirt mixed with VB and smoke. This man has no front teeth, top or bottom and the side of his teeth are yellow. The first impression and vision I had when I saw this guy was the guy on the right – later consulting with both Dinesh and Amit, the feelings were mutual and they too were reminded of the same characters.

Once he drops the wood, which he once again single handily picks up and re-positions, he opens his mouth – this gents name is Andrew. He is there with his friend Brad.

SO we thank Andrew and his Companion Brad for helping us out with. They explain how they are from Lalor and Epping. Andrew does nothing, although I suggest you could just pick up buildings and move them. Brad is a lawnmower, who recently suffered an accident, as his 16 year old brother who is 6 foot 7 picked him up and dropped him on his shoulders. Conversation continues sand they walk off – at this point Dinesh, Amit and I discussed how we had just met the most Bogan Characters ever.

We go for a walk and then head back, start the fire and start to have a few drinks and relax. The sun is setting so we give ourselves a break and chill. At this point Brad returns with his other mate, Michael, another very stocky looking guy, who seems a little less bogan, riveting conversation pursues, about how was a manager at Mcdonalds, whether or not we fight (when we say no, they come over to check and feel our biceps), then question us why we don’t fight, then they explain all the fights they have had and how many people have had their heads bashed in.

With all this interesting conversation happening they call over a third member from there group.. I actually forgot his name, but he was referred to as Brad’s Boyfriend, over and over. Thinking this is a joke we laugh, this gent walks over.. and without saying a word Brad request a cigarette which this man rolls for him, to which Brad slaps him (no reason for this) the guy says nothing, he then kisses him on the lips and pushes him.. the guy says nothing.. ..Brad slaps him again. The guy remains to stand there – many words come to mind when thinking of this person much along the lines of slave, and a word that rhymes with Shrimp (starts with G)

Conversation then moves towards guns, and how much damage certain guns can do, about the Sudanese community, and finally it moves towards how Michaels gf burnt down his house the week before and how Brad has violent outburst due to his ADHD conditions.

At this point 40 minutes have passed and we are thinking how we run away from these crazy folk. I decide to walk off and Amit does too.. D remains there with these guys and when we come back they have moved on. *Phew*

So we are chilling and once again Michael runs over – we see a flurry of activity in the campsites to the right of us. Michael comes over and tells us a Bushfire has broken out. Some guy across the river got disgruntled with his landlord and burnt the house. Embers are in the sky and everyone has packed up.

We commence operation pack up and evacuate!!! As we are evacuating a warden drives in and with a light asks us to leave asap. We continue packing up – a guy then speeds down yelling “GET OUT GET OUT!” in a commodore with his window open – we later find out this is the guy who burnt the house and wanted to come warn people . We pack up in a hurry as we can clearly see the embers in the air outside. I notice that the others to the left of us (Netherlands couple are not packing up.. I go and warn them – they had not heard the warnings. The guy looks at the sky and realises the danger is real. We then commence and warn the other families trying our best not to scare the kids.

We load everything in the car, even though there are others that have just left everything, and we head to the entrance of the campsite – yes my car survives the steep climb 😀 we drove up as fast as we could because we could see the embers getting close

We get to the top where there are many others waiting and fire engines are arriving on the scene – we are told to wait with everyone until they figure out the threat. We wait and 3 fire engines arrive and enter the campsite. By this stage everyone has been evacuated.

We look for more campsites in the region and finally find one called Lake Narracan near Moe, this is a paid site – we get there around 11 and the reception looks closed. We ring the bell and about 1 minute later the man comes, this man has make upon his face and his eyebrows are taped up – Yes yes a cross dresser. We had interrupted his ritual with our hunt for accommodation. he gives us a place. We drive in and on the middle of the strip there is a Billy Goat just chilling. We drive around the goat since it looked pretty adamant that it was the owner of the campsite (possibly was with the rituals that were going on). We finally got to our site – set up camp cooked some amazing Chicken Saracha Tenderloins and roasted some veggies. Then slept!

Sunday – We woke up the weather was fantastic 28 Degrees, suns up – we headed to Inverloch and went to the beach– got there and the cool change was setting in, we had a quick BBQ, some ciders, enjoyed the view and took some snaps. Finally we then headed back to Melbourne.