Without a glitch we had found the campsite. I was beginning to calm down a bit know, but we were the other side of the world in the country where the people wear the hats with the corks, the Aborigines play didgeridoos and the kangaroos roam free!
After finding the campsite, Howard springs and the springs, we could relax but it seemed impossible, because of the atmosphere, it was so different so incredibly relaxed and we weren’t used to that so we couldn’t. Have you ever had that feeling when you are somewhere that you have never been before and something’s different but you can’t describe what, well it was like that.
At the spring; from what I can remember, a dam had been created and there was a lake behind it. You were allowed to swim in this lake so I thought great, the water was so nice and clean and clear, nothing like this country. There were people swimming in the lake so naturally I was going to go in. I was so excited so I didn’t even look at what might have been in the water and didn’t even consider it, but I had noticed people wearing snorkels but hadn’t thought about what they might be doing.
“Alex look,” coming from my mum
“Look where.” I replied
“Under the water”
And a quick short sharp
“Aagggghhh” followed. They made me jump what ever ‘they’ were. Later we were to find out that they were barramundi, big fish, very big fish and alligator snapping turtles. ‘Wicked’ just what you want with you when you are swimming around minding your own business, a turtle to come up and snap at your privates!
Barramundi are extremely big fish native to Australia, and they sucked. They sucked quite literally as that was their way of eating. They would slowly approach a large fly on the surface or a small fish and suck, shlup; the fish was gone, ingenious!
After all the things that had happened our internal clocks were screwed, to put it politely. My legs were in England my body in France my limbs over Turkey and my head lost somewhere over the Timor Sea. We were all quite clearly jet lagged.
Back at the campsite I was determined to sleep in the top bunk. ‘Brilliant’ I had it.
“Mum I better sleep in the top bunk because Greg always falls out.” If you are wondering Greg is my little brother; my mum and my brother both agreed.
We were lying on the bed talking about the atmosphere being so incredibly different because there are no words to describe how or what it feels like. Then it went silent, dark, light, dark great dream.
‘BANG’ next thing I know the ceiling of the caravan looks a lot further away and my head hurts. I got back up and ready to jump back into bed and ‘whoa’ my mum had to catch me before I took up resident on the floor. Have a guess; I had fallen out of bed!
I’m sure that you can imagine a transit van. Well behind the front seats put a toilet /shower which was pretty much what it was, two bunk beads sink drainage boards a seat bed down and a load of cupboards above the sink. As you can imagine that leaves little room for a gangway down the middle, but there was. The toilet was behind the driver seat and the bunk beds behind that, opposite the bed was the sink and in between the small passage and squashed down the end was the bed/sofa thing. There is only one thing left to say about it and that is me falling off the bunk bed and hitting my temple on the corner of the drainage board, now you can see why I consider my self a bit lucky to still be here today.
Despite that little accident the rest of the holiday ran really smoothly, despite having to get up before sunrise to see the sunrise on Uluru (Ayres rock)- the aboriginal name for it. It was the best holiday that I had ever had and I would love to re-live it someday, but all in time, all in time.
