Nerd VS Wild - The British Incursion!

1.      The British Incursion.

Let me set the scene. Australia day, 2012. It was sunny and the morning sun broke through a freshly torn window in my canvas. By now I had stopped worrying about Chernobyl vans brittle canvas. The way I saw it, it was like renovating, and we had just added a new window to the master bedroom. I drag myself out of bed and lit up the gas kettle. Court wakes up and I ask her to watch the kettle so I could go to the bathroom. I run the gauntlet of my cheery Nomad tribe members getting hit with “Hellos” and “Good mornings” left and right and make it to the toilet block. To my shock, there’s an older guy standing in his jocks (underwear), doing his dishes in the sink. “Hello mate” he says in a thick English accent, I smile and return the greeting then walk into the cubicle. “Shitty weather if you know what I mean?” he says. Mind you I’m in the cubicle out of eyesight. I decided to follow my rule and would answer him once I was out. “You know what I mean?” He asks again. Now I got kind of annoyed here because toilet time is a private time and had no interest in talking weather while I was trying to pee. “You know what I mean?” he says a third time.
“Yeah” I say, breaking the one golden rule, and thus upsetting the balance of nature, nay, the entire universe. Then he continues to talk weather. I decide I need to formulate an escape route, do I run before washing my hands? No, I think to myself, I cannot leave. I decide to avoid eye contact, quick rinse, no soap, and perform a more thorough hand wash when I get to the van. Time to get my game face on, things just got real. This wasn’t some walk in the park like crossing the creek at Coopernook Forest, this was my worst nightmare, a bathroom talker… the worst case scenario. Ready? Break! I say in my head as I reach for the cubicle door and bust through it. He looks up with a gleam in his eye, I break eye contact and head for the basin which doesn’t have his dishes in it. I fumble trying to undo the tap. “Australia day…” he says followed by an awkward pause as I rinse my hands as quickly as possible. “What a load of shit.” He says. “Oh.” I say, somewhat insulted, and with that I had fell for his trap, if he was the fisherman, he just set the hook and was reeling me in, with an awkward bathroom conversation.

Now I just want to make it clear that this is no exaggeration, but 45 minutes later I manage to break away from conversation and head back to the van. Court says I was gone so long she could almost legally file for a missing persons report and by that time my coffee was cold and tasted like disappointment.

Court and I decided that because St Ives was so nice and cheap, we would stay an extra week to wait out the peak period and save a few dollars. Turns out this was a big mistake. You see, this is probably an overshare but when it comes to number 2’s, I’m a ninja pooper. So I head to the toilet block with my shower bag which is used to conceal the fact I’m doing number 2’s. My shower bag is secretly, my pooping kit. There it is, my secret is out. I can’t take it back anymore but I feel like the weight is lifted from my shoulders. Inside my “Shower bag” (yeah, I know you know now) are all the ninja pooping essentials. It contains…

1X Toilet roll, never leave the van without one. Trust me, it’s a long and lonesome walk back to your campsite when you realize all too late that there was no public toilet paper.
1X Toilet drops, handy to conceal evidence.
1X Game Magazine, sometimes you can’t go as quick as you want to, and this helps.

So under a veil of darkness, I silently creep towards the amenities block with my “shower bag.” I manage to escape the sight of my fellow tribe members and make it into the toilet block. Mission Accompli… “Good to see the rains cleared, you know what I mean?” the thick British accent cuts down my moment of victory like a blaze of English machine gun fire. “Yeah mate.” I say and shyly head for the cubicle hoping he will go away. “I used to be a Paratrooper, you know what I mean?” he says out of the blue. I just want to yell over the cubicle “Jesus Christ let me poop in peace!” but can’t. I abort my pooping mission and once out of the cubicle am roped into a conversation about how he was suing a bunch of people because he can. After about another 45 minutes of conversation, well there wasn’t much conversing going on, more like him talking, I escape and walk out. I could hear him heading back to his campsite so I pull the “fakie” maneuver and turn around back into the toilet block. Finally! I can go to the toile… “I forgot to say, they are legally obligated to pay, you know what I mean?” Yes, he followed me back into the toilet to continue conversation!

A few days later I woke up and went to head to the bathroom, I saw him (I forgot his name, possibly due to brain damage from listening to his monotonous whining) heading toward the toilet, I quickly performed an about-turn and retreated to my caravan, using a small tear, I mean, new window to stake out the toilet block. Then I see approaching from the other side of my campsite, an innocent civilian walking into certain doom. I wanted to warn him, I really did, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made, so I let him walk to his doom. I could hear the “you know what I mean?” coming from the toilet block and I knew he had a new victim. I managed to walk in, do my thing, and walk out. I then sat down and enjoyed a nice coffee and breakfast while the echo of “you know what I mean?” resonated from the toilet block. I had managed to fend off “The British Incursion.”

Since this incident Courtenay and I have safeguards in place to prevent “The British Incursion” from happening again. We watch the toilet block and are thinking about using fake bird calls to warn of impending danger.

Next episode we meet Reg the Colonel and Doreen the Explorer. Courtenay also manages to be accused of being a criminal! Stay tuned Monday!