(10) Lost In The Woods

When I was seven or eight, I made up a game I used to frequently play with my younger siblings and neighborhood children. The gist of the game was disappearing from parental supervision into whatever surrounding woods we had close to home and pretend we had no parents and were children left to live in the forest. We would find empty water bottles and cracked dishes in the woods and food (onion grass and berries) in order to stay alive in the forest. Almost every time we played there was a stolen pot from our mom’s kitchen and we would throw in grass, berries, leaves and colorful flowers and make our favorite dish – Stone Soup.
Call me a little suburban hippie child but I truly loved that game and the past 6 days truly reminded me of my childhood tendencies.
Sam took us to a little town a few hours from Melbourne called Mathoura. There had been a huge party at the Sharehouse on Friday night (I played bartender) and the boys wanted to detox after the stress and wearisome effort of throwing such an amazing party. The party was an incredibly interesting experience. You had a couple teenagers, one man who was in his late sixties, a large MILF crowd and then a heap of 20 – 30’s in the diverse crowd. I connected with a few really cool people who gave me their business cards with promises of fun nights, private parties, job offers and one guy even wanted me to be a model (!) but I think that was the booze talking (although I did look hot).
Moving on now, early Tuesday morning – about 11 AM, the car was packed to the gills with camping gear (Sam has every kind of camping chachka) and we head off into the sunset (literally by the time we left it was about that time) and we made our way to our new home.
Turns out our new home is right on the Murray River and we are about 25 kilometers from the nearest main road or gas station. This was totally awesome because you’re in complete seclusion and you have the quiet company of the huge Red Gum trees. We saw hundreds of wild kangaroo which are so cute and when I tell you the sky was something magical at night, I am not exaggerating. There are no lights for miles around so when you lay down and look at the stars at night there are millions of them and they are all sparkling brightly and winking down at you like they are enjoying the warmth of the fire with you.
We took little day trips as well to little local towns, sometimes to fill up on random supplies and one time I got lucky and we got ice cream! We prepared a lot of awesome meals on our little gas stove and everyone had a favorite tree where they went to the bathroom armed with baby wipes. You have not had a true camping experience until you have gone to the bathroom outside consistently for 6 days.
It liberates you.
That’s the thing about camping out though. Reducing the amount of materialistic items and unnatural aspects of life diminishes distraction. You have more time to think of yourself. Suddenly trivial things don’t matter as much and you just have all this time to get to know the people you’re with and the only task at hand is to keep the energy warm and vibrant.
Enough of that hippie shit. We left our little village on Sunday morning and it started to rain which created a slight problem for our little traction-less Toyota. The car even bogged down with camping gear started to fishtail on the muddy dirt roads. Eventually we came to a complete stop when the car slipped off a bridge leaving one tire was hanging off the bridge and the rest of the car sitting patiently.
Sam got out immediately and started off running in the direction of the main road. Dovi and I looked at each other and the same thought crossed our minds. The main road was at least 20 kilometers from where we were, so we had plenty of time on our hands. Dovi reckoned he would take a walk but I opted to read a book and started giggling to myself all cozy and warm in the car when it started raining again. I know – I’m a bad person.
By the time Dovi came back (soaked) a pick up truck came up behind us. Now this guy John was a true Blue Aussie and plainly told us that he would not rest that day until we were safe and sound on the main road. Long story short, he rescued us and picked up Sam on the way to town for rope and also spent almost two hours escorting us back to the main road in order to make sure we got there safely.
I love the Aussies.
Well, now we’re back in civilization and I must say the hot shower felt wonderful and it’s nice to be back in touch with friends.
Tomorrow we go to Sydney for the next adventure……