Next morning. Dawn. Solitary kangaroo in the distance. No irksome council official. Just a man in a pick-up emptying the bins. There’d been a forced entry in the gents toilets. I must have looked shocked. Money boxes for the showers he quickly explained. Broken into. I smiled. Relieved. He suspected the group of young people staying at the site might be able to shed some light on the matter. Locals. Unemployed. One with previous form with the Police.
I said I wasn’t so sure. They’d been very friendly towards me. Testosterone kept in check by the young women in the group. Camping out to enjoy a little freedom. Released a little from the strictures of village life. Hardly rebellious, willing to clash with authority. Quite the opposite. It was they who’d sought to avoid confrontation. Warning me of the council official. Whatever their past antics, they seemed to have moved on. Matured. One couple proudly expecting a baby.
And of the break-in? Last year it’d been a French backpacker. Daft enough to boast of his exploits in the visitors book. In French admittedly. Arrested later in Cairns. But still a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
