Encounter I
It`s our first day in Australia. We landed in Sydney, took the car, managed to get out of Sydney and tried to find a place to stay for the night. We know that there should be a free camping at Carrington Falls, near the town of Robertson. Somehow we can’t locate it, so we decide to ask for directions at a local gas station. I am sure that I can easily master the Australian accent after managing English in New Zealand.
I was wrong.
My conversation with a very friendly clerk seemed to me as if I was trying to understand Dutch based on my knowledge of German and he was trying to figure out what language I was trying to speak….This is how it looked like from my perspective:
Ania: Hi, I`m looking for a camping near Carrington Falls?
Helpful Man: ??? Never heard of such place!
Ania: Hmmm…And do you know about any free camping around here?
Helpful Man: Sure, you can camp at Carrington Falls!
A: And how do I get there?
HM: You continue for 5 kilometers and then turn right at pas……..(followed by something I completely didn’t understand)
A: So I turn right at a pasture (looking doubtfully at him, since I’m not sure at all if this is what he said)
HM: Not pasture, you turn right past a bike shop.
A: Past bike shop? (I decided to repeat everything the man says, just to make sure I understood him right)
HM: A place where they sell bikes.
Feeling semi-confident that I know where to go and only a little nervous because I didn’t see any bike shop on the way, I directed Marc according to the instructions. And everything worked out just fine, except for the fact that the bike shop turned out to be a pie shop.
Close enough.
Encounter II
Immediately after we arrived at the camping we met Greg and his 11-years-old daughter Jade. This great duo gave Marc and I a crash course on proper Australian bush camping.
First of all, Greg took Marc to gather the wood for the fire. Greg warned Marc that he was a bit nervous walking in his flip-flops, since there were two of the most dangerous snakes (king brown and taipan) known to inhabit that place. But since Greg was not nervous enough to go back, Marc decided to keep up.
Greg loaded half of the forest on Marc’s arms, and Marc, a descendant of Canadian woodcutters, was too proud to admit that he was breaking in half. His grand-grand-fathers would be proud of him, as he delivered all the wood for the whole night in one turn.
We spent the whole evening together and it was fantastic. My Australian comprehension was improving every minute, and my vocabulary was greatly enriched with the names all animal species I didn’t even know existed the day before.
At the end of the evening Greg, Jade and Marc went fishing for yabbies (creatures that look like a cross-over between a lobster and a crayfish). I decided to stay as a fire-keeper, partly of altruism and partly because I didn’t quite feel like walking through a bush full of snakes only to get into the creek full of huge eels on my first night in Australia…
Everybody survived the nightly escapade, well, except for a few yabbies, and the great night was completed by a good-bye breakfast: yabbies with coffee.
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