(If you’re having a sense of deja vu with this post, I apologise, I revisited the last one and separated this one away. So, go read the previous one for the ton of pictures I’ve added there!)
Whether by design or not, it works out that I work mostly with Nelly at Beachcamp Retreat and Cat works mostly with Will at the campsite, and Jacqui oversees us all; an arrangement which suits us all. Cat and I compare notes and observe that both are a different kind of demanding work and once used to working one it can be challenging to switch to the other. Not least because each one has its own rhythm, but also because of the adjustment to the change in amenities: running water versus managed water supply, ensuite bathrooms versus camping toilet and showers, beds versus two-person tents and sleeping bags. ‘Pristine’ at the campsite is quite different from ‘pristine’ at the retreat.
I have an opportunity to camp down the beachside a couple of times. One time, I offer to switch with Cat because I’m going to be turfed out of my quiet bed because a group of school children are booked to spend the night in the Rainbow Rooms. Cat and I are cleaning the bathrooms and making up the beds and I can see that she’s not feeling on top form. Talking about it, I would much rather spend a night or two at the campsite than have to sleep in the Dungeon, and she wouldn’t mind a night off from sleeping down camp in a tent; sleeping by the pump doesn’t bother her, which I’m happy for her but can’t fathom!
Having found the rhythm at the Retreat I suddenly find myself feeling almost clueless again about how the campsite works. Chopping veggies, cooking and cleaning up, I know that though. As the Retreat has running water and the volunteers generally take care of the washing up for guests, whereas the campsite has to manage limited fresh water, and so washing up is done in a three bowl system of two salt water bowls and final fresh water rinse and guests are invited to wash their own dishes. Afterwards, the food-scrappy water needs to be emptied and rinsed in the sea, which of course involves going down the beach. I don’t know how Will and Cat normally manage this together. I’m happy to do it but I hassle Will to come with me with a dingo stick, I’m not going down there by myself and you can’t easily carry a dingo stick when you’re using two hands to carry a heavy bowl full of water!
Dingoes are a native dog to Fraser Island and the last pure breed in Australia. They are scavengers rather than hunters and a history of successfully scavenging in bins and being fed by humans who live on and visit the island has encouraged aggressive behaviour in the past that the residents and tourism industry are now addressing by teaching practices that make food less available to the dingoes, i.e. dingo fences and good camping practices, and discouraging human interaction with them. They might look deceptively similar to domesticated dogs but these are wild animals, and it’s a ‘dingo-eat-dingo’ world that they live in, they can get aggressive and they will bite. It is not just about the dangerous aggressive behaviour, though, pups were also starving because they weren’t being taught the normal survival skills from mum. Part of Dave’s ‘Dingo Safe’ spiel to guests is that if anybody wants to wander down the beach from the campsite, to take a buddy and at least one ‘dingo stick’ between them and for at least one of them to be prepared to swing the stick at a dingo that gets too near: a ‘dingo stick’ is any decent-sized baton that can be swung to deter, or fend off if necessary, any overly curious or confident Dingoes. I’m led to understand, though, that there hasn’t been a dingo incident in years. The locals don’t seem to take as strong precautions: I saw a fisherman being pestered by a dingo who wanted to put his nose in his fish bucket and he just mostly just ignored the attention and there was no aggression. It’s different when you’re a local, though, and you know the island and dingoes generally.
Returning to the campsite one afternoon, the wind is relentless and Will and I find the main tent in critical condition. With the canvass flapping wildly and poles fallen down, battling with it just the two of us isn’t working and dinner needs to be prepped. There’s nothing for it than for Will to go back to the Retreat for backup and he leaves me chopping vegetables. There’s no dingo protection fence here and I’m alone in the campsite handling food. Now I know what it feels like to be a rabbit:
Chop, chop, chop. Check. Chop, chop, chop. Check.
I grab myself a good dingo stick, prop it up in a handy place against my table, and move to the other side of the table so that I’m facing the camp area and my back is to the currently flapping tent.
Chop, chop, chop. Check. Chop, chop, chop. Check.
Finally, the cavalry arrive, no dingoes were sighted and it’s all hands on the fly-away tent. Unfortunately for Cat, she gets left behind but an extra pair of hands, especially camp experienced ones like hers, are very welcome. I’m still getting familiar with camp and I can’t help feeling conscious of being the weak link. Camp works very similarly but not exactly like the Retreat. I want to be helpful and just get jobs done with the least fuss but somehow I feel like I’m creating more as I’m constantly asking where things are, where they go or how Will and Cat normally do things. Cat asks me why I’m so anxious. I don’t know, maybe it’s a habit after working at the Retreat where Nelly, in her impeccable stereotypical German precision, is very specific about how tasks are done, maybe it’s because I’m aware that Cat and Will are a well-oiled machine of team, maybe it’s because I feel more challenged working in a campsite and the sand – it’s deceptively hard work walking to and fro on sand all the time, maybe I’m just feeling generally anxious for some reason – tiredness or hormones, maybe it’s just me.
After dinner I feel dead on my feet. We’re sat down at the end of dinner and everything is done but I know that the dirty water still needs to be taken down the beach. It doesn’t feel right to go to bed before we’ve done everything. My co-volunteers don’t seem to be in a rush to get it done but I feel concerned about it being left for the last person to do by themselves; although the others don’t seem to have the same concern. I negotiate with Cat that she’ll come with me down the beach soon when she’s ready and then I gratefully crawl into bed.
In the morning, breakfast is almost cleared up and it’s dirty washing up water time again. After the issue it was for me to get one of my co-volunteers to come down to the beach with me last night, I’m tired of standing my ground on this issue and I really can’t be bothered to have that argument again in the light. Anyway, I’ve got the worst PMT I’ve ever known (goodness knows why) and the least human interaction the better for me and everybody else this morning. Plus, for some reason my experience over the past two weeks seems to suggest that the dingos are less likely to be about in the morning and, further to that, every time I go down the beach with somebody they seem to be trying to reassure me how safe it actually is – “It’s only down to the sea and back”, “Oh, it’s been windy and raining so they’ll be holed up somewhere sheltering” or “it’s not all that much of a problem really, nobody’s been attacked in years”. This all seems to have created a culture where it’s expected that the scrap bucket is taken and emptied by just one person; and talking to Jacqui afterwards, most of the time this person doesn’t take a dingo stick with them, like she says, “how can you when you are carrying a bowl with two hands?”
So, to take the water to the sea in the washing up bowl or the bucket? The decision seems like one of six and two three’s – to use Jacqui’s phase – and rather than pour two bowls into the almost empty bucket, I pour one bowl into the other, which fills it to almost the brim. Walking past the dingo sticks, I don’t have hands for a stick and the back of my mind considers sticking one under my arm but then I’m past them and trying to make it down the loose sand without pouring food scrap water down my front. The sea is further away than I’d hoped. Looking to the left, I see cars driving away and I assume that they are ours off on their daytrip. When I finally get to the water, toss the dirty washing up water in and rinse the bowl in the sea, I turn around and there’s a dingo not three feet from me.
Ah. Crap.
Me versus dingo alone on the beach and he’s between me and my campsite. My first instinct is to shout, “HELP! HELP! HELP!” camp is only about 30m away over the dune, Will and/or Cat should hear me and I would be glad of some backup, thankyouverymuch.
Dingo and I look at one another. He seems to say, “Hey, what were you throwing there in that bowl? Was it tasty?” I’m not panicking, his behaviour doesn’t look aggressive, more curious. I’m supposed to hit him, to discourage him from approaching humans in the future, and I could swing my bowl at him and I probably should have, but that’s not my instinct and that information is conflicting in my brain with the park safety information, which is to cross my arms across my chest and put hands up to my shoulders and slowly back away; and shout for help, which I already did. I go with crossing my arms and as he begins to walk on down the beach past me, I’m able to both back away and get beach-side of him. Then our cars appear from behind the dune at the same time that Will appears running stick in hand. I’m most of the way back up the beach towards camp but Dave drives the convoy of cars in the space between me and the dingo, parks up and throws sand at it to make sure he goes away. He then turns and yells at me, “Where is your dingo stick?” …Ah…bowl? “What were you thinking?! THIIIINK!!” Um, yes, I feel pretty silly. From Dave’s point of view it was blind stupid call. I can’t shout over the distance between us that I did actually think about it before hand and explain the contributing reasons why I decided to go down the beach by myself with just a bowl and, further to that, I have PMT from hell and a threatening migraine, so, no, I’m not thinking very clearly or making good decisions right now. If I’d gone with the bucket, maybe I could have carried that with one hand and taken a dingo stick in the other. All I can really do is shrug my shoulders sheepishly. Pretty unsatisfying in front of four car loads of guests. I guess I made a nice example to back up Dave’s dingo safety speech and Dave got to play the big man. I like to think that he secretly enjoyed that.
Cat and Will, on the other hand, are very entertained by the incident and they do their best to help me laugh it off and Jacqui is also very supportive. Mostly my throat hurts from shouting and I really do feel hormonally terrible. Back at the retreat, as soon as I’m assured everything is done, I hide in a dark room and escape my own bad mood with my kindle and take a nap. The girls are understanding – we were just talking about all this the other day – Jacqui has suffered recently, as has Cat and later Jacqui champions a chocolate run to Eurong. Their kindness is a lift and, even though it’s not a monthly habit I normally make, I buy all the chocolate: Cadbury’s bar, a Curlywurly, a Crunchy and a Milkybar. And a real coffee. I do feel better 🙂
I don’t go back to the campsite so I don’t get a chance to clear the air with Dave. I want to but he’s busy and I am shy about it. Plus, I’m just a passing volunteer and I leave a few days later. I do feel sad about that. He’s a great guide and we got along very well.
thetravellingtherapist 