Nerd Vs Wild - Better than Expected

First stop, Woombah Woods. Woombah Woods is a small caravan park and camping ground just off the Pacific Highway near Iluka. I remember camping with my parents when I was younger at Woody Head near Iluka, great fishing and right on the beach it had everything! As a child it was my favorite camping spot. I remember educating my parent’s circle of friends on the lunchtime economy. What’s the lunchtime economy you ask? Well it takes a while to explain but I got a whole book so what the hell.

The Lunchtime Economy: A system derived in the schooling years of my life, born from the desperation of refusing to eat another Vegemite sandwich. Do you have kids? If so I want you to keep this in mind. Say you send your kids to school with a sandwich, that’s worth next to nothing on the lunchtime economy. What are high value goods? Cans of soft drink, tiny teddies, tim tams and the ever so elusive Space food sticks. Low ranking goods are Fruit, Sandwiches and anything remotely healthy. So how it works is like this… If you are sent to school with a can of soft drink, that’s a free pass to trade for anything, including high value items. I remember I once traded a can of cola for 2 packets of tiny teddies and a roll up. Those were the days when the economy was good. Then came the devastating Health kick credit crunch… Kids were sent to school with healthy foods such as muesli bars and apples. Suddenly kids couldn’t get tiny teddies for a banana or *shudder* tofu roll. Devastating times. It was tough but we managed to pull through.

So back to the trip. Anyways we pull in to Woombah Woods and it was nothing like we expected. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad place it’s just there is nothing nearby… except the highway. The beach is a solid ten minutes’ drive away and our spot is in between 2 rows of permanent residents. The 4WD pulls into the park and we see the guy running the show, “park it anywhere” he says, “plenty of room here!” He’s right, there are only 2 other populated sites out of about 15. “Should we pay now?” my wife asks. Old mate points up the road, “When the missus gets back.” I flash back to our phone call which went something like this…
“Hi, it’s Joshua Hawthorn, just wanted to confirm our booking for the 16^th?” *long pause* (I’m guessing he was pointing up the road) “I’ll have to get the missus to call you back.”
Back in the present I give him a knowing nod. I know what it’s like to be the assistant manager in a marriage… I know.

I’m guessing fate decided to laugh in my face because as soon as we moved the van onto the site, or in-between two sites (I’m still not sure, plenty of room here) its starts to belt down rain. No big deal Court and I say, and we decide to charge out and set this caravan up like the experts we are! First step, unhitching the van. Yep, we got stuck right here, turns out there’s plenty of space here but we decided to park on the only uneven terrain in the entire park. After about 10 minutes I manage to unhook the van and we start unpacking. “Court you go inside and I’ll unpack things outside.” I say. Then I hear a loud tearing type noise which turns out was the caravan’s idea of adding a new window. I look at the 45cm gash in the side of the canvas and laugh, at least the wheels didn’t fall off (Right here I’m not trying to be humorous; I am actually quite surprised the wheels didn’t fall off.) After about 30 minutes of monsoon rain and hitting my head on pretty much everything I possibly could, we had the van set up and it was time for lunch.

If there’s one thing I love more than space food sticks in my lunch its Tuna sandwiches. Not being the guy who parks in the same spot and eats the same thing at a restaurant I have a particular way of making what I like to call, my “Sammiches.” I drain the excess water out of the tins, then divide the tin up as if I’m drawing a tic tac toe, butter my bread and then spread the tuna. So I do this as I always do, make a coffee and eat my “sammich” pouring the salty water from the tins down the drain. We do the dishes and empty the sink. Turns out, the sink hose isn’t attached so we ended up effectively pouring tuna and dishwater all over our clothes. Believe it or not, I Still think things went better than expected!

So there you have it! Finally on the road and already wanting to go home. Next stop is Pelican Park! Stay tuned for the next adventure of Nerd Vs Wild!