Camp Chaos

Well I'm set up at Hamelin Pool to give this bloke thing a go. The place is hysterical, you could make a reality TV show. I've already been offered a job helping run it; it's the kind of place where you just somehow find yourself absorbed into the chaos & before you know it you're helping fix the washing machine, running the shop or chasing French backpackers out of the private shower block.

Here is a typical 24 hour period at Hamelin Pool:  gay Christian couple's truck breaks down at side of road, they move in to campground, trapped until parts can be sent to Denham from Europe (!). I discover they have run out of food and are living on their last tin of beans so take a bunch of stuff from my bus over to them & try to avoid being conscripted to "follow the way of Jesus" (Was Jesus porking blonde bicycle boys? I want to ask, but hold my tongue).

Meanwhile, the Irish work experience backpacker is sulking in her room and the seemingly random motley collection of grey nomad volunteers are in a state of nervous collapse because the manager has somehow mixed up all the booking dates for various campers & visitors, and there is a large unruly bus group waiting to get in for a museum tour while someone tries to find the keys. The manager, for no apparent reason, has gone to Perth to get meat, no one knows why (it's a two day drive away).

The washing machine has just shat itself because there are too many coins jammed into it (because the manager left the key in Perth last time), so we pull the poor tourist's wet washing out and drag it over to the main house to use the manager's washing machine. The grey nomads have booked too many people into that night's roo barbecue and Duncan is swearing in the roo cooler, hacking off chunks of meat while Honey sits at his feet, drooling (Duncan, being a source of freshly hunted meat, is being worshipped by Honey and Smokey who just ignore me now).

I'm out back in Hillbilly Heaven washing weeks of outback dirt off the bus, occasionally interrupted by various people ("Do you know if there's a hammer drill? Have you seen the key to the diesel tank? Where's the backpacker got to?" "Is that a cat?") and Duncan shouting incomprehensible stream of consciousness romantic comments over the sound of the generator.

That night there's a panic phone call from the manager, who has broken down in the middle of nowhere seven hours away. Duncan & one of the gay Christians (being the only sober second driver in the campsite) head off in the ute with a spare wheel, meat trailer & tools. With Duncan gone, the place descends into complete madness; two of the grey nomads quit, the Irish backpacker locks herself in her room, Honey moves into the gay Christian trailer and a horde of Japanese tourists arrive who all want to use the single public toilet at the same time. Sixteen hours later Duncan & the others make it back looking like the walking dead & all go & collapse in their trailers for a couple hours, then they're back up to do that night's kangaroo dinner at the fire drum. Two guests start fighting over the last kangaroo shank and Smokey breaks into the roo meat esky, eating until he throws up. We fall asleep with the sword fight scene from "The Vikings" stuck on repeat on the DVD, waking occasionally to argue sleepily about who should get up to turn it off.

Apparently this is just a normal day at Hamelin Pool. Will my inner production manager heed the call?