A couple of months ago, I found myself driving along a dirt road through the bush south-west of Perth. It was dark, it was raining, it was past my dinner time, and I was lost.
I’d flown to Perth that afternoon and headed for Perth Hills Centre campground, near the airport, to stay the night. But it was booked out by a school group, and no amount of pleading with the volunteer camp host was going to help my cause. So around 7pm I headed south-west, with a road atlas but without a detailed map, to Lane Poole Reserve, 160km away.
The road soon narrowed to a rutted four-wheel track. There was nowhere to turn around so I kept driving, guiding the hatchback through head-high scrub. The track emerged at a river. I turned left and followed the river (and my instinct) back to a sealed road.
I returned to the ‘town’, I’d passed through earlier, hoping to ask for directions. It consisted of a servo (closed), a church (crumbling) and a hall (deserted). The few houses looked foreboding. My phone was no help – its GPS couldn’t get a signal and its maps didn’t show the campground. For the next hour I explored all the roads in the area, looking for the campground I knew only to be ‘around here somewhere’.
Through dumb luck, I found it. I drove a circuit of the campground. It was huge and there were no other campers (I love having a whole campground to myself). I turned off the engine and sat in the car in darkness, waiting for the rain to ease.
In the rearview mirror, I saw the headlights of a ute approaching. It, too, drove a circuit of the campground. Then it parked right alongside me, within touching distance. Two men got out, both swigging from stubbies of Swan Draught. One was thickset, the other lean.
People often ask me whether I’m scared of camping alone. ‘Not at all,’ I always say. ‘What exactly is it that I’m supposed to be scared of?’
The situation I found myself in now, alone in an isolated campground but for two men apparently intent on intimacy, seemed like the sort of the scenario I was supposed to be scared of. I sat tight and listened, my senses heightened.
‘Do you reckon we’ll need the frying pan for the sausages?’ said Thickset to Lean. They rummaged in the back of the ute by the light of their head torches, then wandered off through the rain to cook dinner in the picnic shelter.
There’s no dramatic punchline to this story. I was lost for no more than 90 minutes. I didn’t get bogged, I didn’t spend a night in the car, and I wasn’t assaulted. Thickset and Lean cooked their sausages, and then, without a word to me, they left. It was weird, harmless, and a little unsettling.
The experience reminded me of the value of planning. I could have booked a campsite. I could have carried a detailed map. I could have taken an earlier flight to avoid driving after dark.
In fact I love planning. Checklists, itineraries, maps, guidebooks – they’re in my blood. I have a genetic predisposition towards planning, if my aunt’s catering roster for our next family camping trip is any indication.
Aunty Gill’s meal roster for the next family camping trip.
My tendency towards planning is so strong that sometimes I deliberately resist it. I try to relax, go with the flow, let things happen, trust that they’ll work out. That’s why I didn’t book a campsite at Perth Hills Centre, and that’s why I travelled without a map showing Lane Poole Reserve.
My research itinerary
The next day I headed east to the coast and explored Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. I discovered forests of tall trees and a campsite filled with wildflowers. Then I swung south-west again. Nannup, Manjimup, Muirillup, Wingebellup, Waychinicup: the towns and roads and national parks of this part of Western Australia read like a Geoff Mack song (‘I’ve been everywhere man…’). Snottygobble Loop wasn’t part of my plan but I stumbled across it.
Snottygobble Loop campground, Western Australia, is named after the snottygobble tree.
In Shannon National Park I met another camper travelling solo, and we hung out for a few days. I couldn’t have planned to meet her. I couldn’t have planned to discover an amazing treetop platform in Mt Frankland National Park a couple of days before its official opening. I couldn’t have booked the world’s most perfect campsite in Waychinicup National Park, because it’s not bookable. But I was there first, and I nabbed it, and it was a highlight of my trip.
Waychinicup Inlet campground, Western Australia
Sometimes the best experiences are the things you don’t plan.
Author Kerryn Burgess is on the road researching campsites for her new book, Australia’s Best Camping, which will be published in October 2014 by Explore Australia.
Buy Kerryn’s Cool Camping Australia: East Coast.
