CARAVAN REVERSING

There are a few rituals that occur daily at caravan parks, one of the most amusing to see must be the act of reversing a caravan onto the designated site, under the watchful eyes of all and sundry. They will not just blatantly stand and watch the victim attempting the backward manoeuvre, but secretly chuckle to themselves while pretending to be busy doing something else, watching out the corner of their eye. It is always the male of the usually elderly retired couple who gets the job, while his wife uses hand signals and runs about doing the directing. It is like a test of manhood, the pressure mounts as the attempts increase and the frustration rises. There are a few schools of thought that you begin to identify, those who just guess which way to turn the steering wheel and hope for the best, trial and error style. There is also the slowly does it option, this way you do not actually give away the fact that you do not know what you are doing. Then there are the experts who do it in one motion with one hand tied behind their back, then hop out of their car and polish their fingernails on their shirt. Here at Forest Glen we have seen all manner of styles come and go in the past week and a half. There was a young lad here for the first week of our stay, Josh, the experienced and well travelled12 yr old who knew everything about caravans and mobile homes, including the reversing of. Whenever a new comer arrived he would be straight over, sussing out their style and all their gear, commenting on the quality or lack of and suggesting any improvements. He was very honest and quite a pain really! Another noticeable ritual is the row of men shaving every morning at the basins in the amenity blocks and the usual banter that goes with it, ably accompanied by the noises from the toilets behind. Fair dinkum, at times you would think you were in the midst of the brass section of an orchestra. And the question must be asked, how do you choose which toilet to use from the seven on offer? Do you use the same one each day or become comfortable with “yours”. For some reason I never choose the ones on the ends, usually the third one in, don’t know why…. When you spend any length of time in the same place you become very comfortable with the surroundings. You also get to meet various new “neighbours” as they come and go, they are mostly very pleasant and usually up for a chat. There is the odd unsociable person like the Pauline Hansen lookalike who was next door for a few days, though we have had the pleasure to meet Isobel and Keith who parked up next to us a couple of days ago in their spiffy American made RV with all its hydraulic bells and whistles. They made it known very early on that Isobel is in the middle of a fight with breast cancer. Whilst admiring the artwork I was working on she told us that she had started to draw with pastels for the first time in her life when she was first diagnosed a year or so ago and let us have a look at the preliminary copy of a book she has produced which will be published in October. It comprises a series of drawings and some words about her battle with cancer and it is very inspiring. She loves butterflys and these creatures are her signature, signifying peace, hope, freedom and beauty, a lesson the Israelis could learn from at the moment. I made her a small butterfly out of steel, it was simple and very effective, it went down very well with Isobel. They are a lovely couple from Kyabrim in Victoria and we wish her and Keith all the best with the coming months. On a lighter note, there is a little town near here called Sippy Downs, it rolls off the local’s tongues very easily but I can’t mention it’s name, or even read it on a signpost without smirking. The organic shop around the corner from here is quite amazing, it has organic everything and the prices are not too bad really, we will stock up on produce before we leave. We also visited Underwater World last week which is full of sea creatures and was very interesting. The leafy sea dragons are a totally beautiful creature, we enjoyed the seal show and the glass tunnel which has a moving walk way right through the deep sea aquarium, it was quite fantastic. I am even more determined to catch some fish now!! Last Sunday morning we went to Palmwoods so Tal could play a game of footy with the local under 10’s team and they were a great bunch of people we met, very welcoming, down to earth and enthusiastic. I finished the two pieces of art for Kingsley today, I am very pleased with them and have learnt more and developed my style in the last week working on them. Kingsley was also very pleased with the result, it is funny the path that led to us meeting eachother and I am glad we did because he is a genuine and very nice bloke. It has been a nice stay but we are ready to hit the road again and head northwards. Have more news from Rainbow Beach where we are leaving now, will post again soon.