Christmas in the bush, 2021.                                               Ken Windsor

 

It was idyllic.

On Christmas day, there were ten of us at the homestead for a traditional baked lunch with the air conditioning running full strength. By the evening the rest of the group had arrived.

Seven caravans, plus swags and a roof-top tent, on a property thirty plus kilometres from anywhere and one kilometre from the farmhouse. Set up on the edge of a twenty-five-acre dam, with no power, no internet and intermittent cell-phone service. Totally off the grid.

Thirty-three in residence plus fourteen visitors on Christmas Day, a total of forty-seven for dinner.

Each family contributed to the buffet lunch. Ham, turkey, pork, chicken, beef and lamb, supported by a wide variety of salads. Finished off with fruit platters and a Christmas cake that was moist enough to be a pudding.

The weather was perfect, temperatures hovering in the low to mid-thirties and full sun during the day, with a light breeze to temper the heat of the sun.

There were plenty of water activities. One of the families brought their ski-boat, with a range of towable inflatables, wake board and water skis. Others brought stand-up paddle boards and kayaks. There were floatation vests to cover everyone who needed one.

The teenagers set up a cricket pitch in the centre of the campsite and the less energetic sat in comfortable camp chairs and watched the activities. The even less energetic, sat in front of a television and watched the cricket test match, to see England being thrashed. Only three channels were available during the day, luckily one of them showed the test match.

The grand parent group took a cruise around the dam to discover a dead tree in the water containing a cormorant or shag’s nest. When the boat moved by fast, the bird did not move. When the boat circled the tree slowly, the bird took flight, revealing three or four chicks on the nest, with open beaks, looking for mother.

What an idyllic setting. Something for everyone with peace and quiet.

Isn’t that lovely? Now, the cynical soul takes over!

Prior to Christmas Eve, we watched the weather reports. If rain had been forecast, the event was off. Too many kilometres of dirt road to navigate towing a van and the track to the dam, around a wheat paddock has a very boggy patch halfway in that has trapped caravans and even four-wheel drives in the past.

Okay, weather forecast clear. It is on! Final items were thrown into the caravan at the last minute and we were off. The trip out was uneventful. The aircon in the car gave us a false sense of things to come. We got through the bad patch on the track. The driver’s side had water in the wheel ruts but earlier traffic had cut a swerve into the paddock which was almost dry.

We arrived at the campsite to find four vans already set up. The owners had left to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with in-laws. They would be back for tomorrow’s activities. It was hot! We set-up our little caravan, attached an awning and sat down with a cold beer. It was hot.

Later in the day, the next family turned up and parked beside us, forming a rough horseshoe of caravans. Two sons set up swags in a ute a little way down the track. Two daughters were staying in the van with mum and dad. He was finishing his set up when I heard him shout “Snake” from three metres away. (For the non-metric readers, a metre is three inches longer than a yard so he was close.)

Now, when it comes to snakes, I make no apologies for being a professional coward. Five hundred metres is a safe distance between me and a snake, unless it is in a fully secured enclosure. I cowered and quivered on the top step of my van while the part-owner of the place came running along with a long-handled spade and the two of them proceeded to hunt down the snake. It was a young eastern brown, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. The owner, let’s call him “A”, was dressed in shorts and an open shirt. I heard his wife say to one of the onlookers who had gathered, “It’s okay, he’s got his boots on!” I thought ‘Yes, just the right attire for Boot Hill!’ The snake lost the game of hide and seek, with the spade neatly separating head from body. “A” held up the writhing body by the tail and threw it into the scrub. To me, in my state of abject fear, it looked two metres long. In reality, it was about half a metre.

It was hot. The sweat was soaking my shirt.

The afternoon passed into evening and dinner was prepared. The campsite is dominated by an original bandstand from a pub. It has a solid corrugated iron roof and back and is gauzed in on the other three sides. An ideal place to set up the buffet table for dinner. What a spread! Cooked prawns for entrée, five meat platters and a variety of salads. I’ve seen less at first class hotels – they certainly put on a spread in the bush. Our contribution was a leg of ham which I had glazed and baked on the Thursday.

‘A’ had been presented with a nine-kilogram (2.2lbs to the kg) turkey to cook. It’s a good job it was dead because I reckon it could have outrun all of us. It was too big for the farm-house oven so it ended up in the portable pizza oven outside. Unfortunately, the wind came up and blew out the gas burners on the oven so it was relocated to the enclosed back veranda of the house. It was even hotter with the pizza oven going at the back door.

Because turkey was not a usual item on the menu, ‘A’ decided to check cooking methods. The obvious place to look was on American Thanksgiving Day sites. He found a suitable recipe and when he calculated cooking times, he found that due to its size it required ten hours in the oven. The poor fella had been up since six a.m. to have this bird ready for dinner. It was definitely worth the effort.

After dinner, it was time for a coffee. We normally carry a coffee pod machine in our van, but this trip, with no 240v power, it was left at home. I filled our kettle with water and put it on the two-burner gas stove to boil and went to prepare the cups. “Where is the coffee?” I enquired. You guessed it. It is still in the kitchen cupboard at home. I then suffered the ignominy of creeping around the campsite with a cup held, in two hands, in front of my face, like a Buddhist Monk in Thailand begging for alms. Luckily, Mrs P had a pack of instant cappuccino coffee that she did not use. It lasted us ‘til we got back home! This time it was coffee, last time at a similar gathering five years ago, it was toilet rolls! But we scored a pack of rolls in that night’s secret Santa! – talk about luck.

Boxing day dawned with storm clouds to the west of us. It was hot!  With no power, we took cold showers. One would think that immersing a hot body in cold water would be refreshing. Not so! The water tank was low down in an insulated caravan, when the shower was turned on, the very cold water almost sizzled on the hot body. The reaction was instinctive and resulted in a bruise on the head from bouncing off the low ceiling.  

Outside, water activities continued. The small, almost circular inlet next to the campsite was full of young people cooling off. The ski-boat was picking up another three for a fun ride on a towed inflatable “biscuit” when I heard the dreaded call “Snake! - Everybody out of the water”- “Now!” At Bondi, it would have been “Shark” and accompanied by screaming sirens and several lifeguards with megaphones. Here in the bush, within seconds of splashing and slippery bodies scrabbling up the wet bank, the water was empty apart from the boat and a slim, black snake, heading for the far bank. “A” who had made the call leaped from his seat, cleared several obstacles in one bound and headed, at a gallop, picking up his trusty spade on the way to the other side of the bay. The boat driver nosed into the bank and joined him in the search. This time, the snake won and went to ground, not to be seen again. Within ten minutes, the water sports were back in full swing.

The sky was looking ominous with black storm clouds circling. We were still in bright sunlight when the wind started to blow strongly. There was a move to fold up the caravan awnings. On our van, one tent pole had shifted and dislodged the stretcher holding it out from the van, so the awning now drooped on one corner. It did not take long to decide to pull it down and pack it away – we are leaving tomorrow; it will save time in the morning. With the aid of our neighbours, we got it wrapped and ready for transport. Without the neighbours, Audrey and I would probably have struggled and been flown like uncontrolled parachutists across the countryside.

A light shower of rain fell during the afternoon but the main storm cells bypassed us. The sky cleared, although the wind continued strongly through the night. In the morning, after a bowl of cornflakes, I took a walk around the campsite. Picked up a slice of bread here, a piece of bacon and a sausage from there, made a sandwich and went back to the van to make a cup of coffee. The young boys were out throwing balls at each other and defending themselves with cricket bats as others milled around, saying farewells and hitching vans to vehicles.

It was our turn to move, to allow the next van to get his 4WD in to hitch-up. Windows open, arms waving, shouts of “see ya!” followed us along the track, past the boggy patch and onto the dirt road for home. What a lovely, idyllic way to spend Christmas in the bush.