Kombi-ah, my lord
Continuing on the theme of the anti-backpacker movement currently gaining traction. It’s no exaggeration to say discrimination of our people has not been at such levels since the late 1960s, when backpackers around the world were rounded up and systematically dehumanised: their dreadlocks cut, friendship bands snapped from their wrists; shoes forced on their feet.
A GRAVE DISCOVERY: Where do the backpackers go in February? In broad daylight Waverely Council covers over the mass grave site of countless backpackers who have been rounded up and destroyed over the past month. The bodies, I assume, were dumped in just after midnight as locals gathered to rejoice with celebratory lattes and vouchers for 50% off at their local cosmetic surgery. And to think there are those who say the council are simply removing the sand which swept up against the boardwalk during the recent winds and super moon high tide!
Little has changed.
The annual hate campaign against backpackers began earlier this summer (southern hemisphere) when local media outlets forewent their usual front pages of cats stuck in trees and minor local celebrities [1] to openly vilify a minority group: backpackers.
It begins with a seemingly innocuous article highlighting one of the world’s great human migrations: the coming of the backpacker to Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Like wildebeest marching over the plains of the Serengeti, we come in our thousands. Lured by the summer sun, cash-in-hand jobs, and an overwhelming urge to mate.
Instead of being celebrated, however, “locals” complain. It’s always the same, too:
“Get off my driveway!”
“Get out of my swimming pool or I’ll call the police.”
“Stop shitting in my hedge.”
“No, my driveway doesn’t need resurfacing.”
We arrive as wide-eyed virginal [2] children; but we leave (once the jobs have dried up and the winter comes) tainted by the evils of the world.
HUT: It's little known that this tiny hut at Camp Cove has been retro-fitted with a pull-out bed and flatscreen TV. When Darryl and Quentin asked me to move out (temporarily) from The Big Galah I spent one night here after I paddle boarded from Bondi Beach, around South Head, and into Camp Cove. You enter via a small tunnel (not seen in this image) which is only accessible at low tide.
It’s the hypocrisy that bothers me the most. I recall countless times from my own childhood where I was invited to climb aboard a fire engine at the New Forest Show or scramble around inside a police car. My parents actively encouraged me to play with the policeman’s truncheon or wrap my hands around the fireman’s giant hose.
That was only a few years ago. How times have changed.
Fast forward to the present day. A good friend of mine was in town last week and I spent a few pleasant days in his VW Kombi. Fortunate, since I’d temporarily moved out of The Big Galah hostel. [3]
It had been years since I saw Michael. He is a long-time convert to FreeStyleTravel™ and the Glorified Gypsy way of life, and it’s been a pleasure to mentor him over the years.
Alas, neither of us were prepared for the hate we received last week. We’d parked up close to the footbridge in the beach car park off Campbell Parade and had just finished cooking. I was scraping the grease from the frying pan into the heath banksias and was about to amble down to the beach to wash the pan, when a local tapped on my shoulder.
At first I thought I must have dropped the bottle of bleach, but when I looked down in my bucket it was still there.
The woman – one of those mid-forty busybody types who just looks haughty – said she’d noticed Michael and I had been parked up in the same spot for the last five days. She then grabbed me by the elbow and marched me over to a sign and asked me to read it aloud. Her six year old son trailed behind with his yellow body board under his arm.
The sign said: NO CAMPING OR STAYING OVERNIGHT.
NO CAMPING: Shark Beach, surrounded by the lush trees of Nielson Park. An ideal place for any backpacker to spend a week or two, right? Well, not if the locals have their way. As with Bondi Beach, campervans, tents and digging a pit latrine simply isn't tolorated!
I affected a foreign accent and pretended not to understand the sign, or what she was saying. Well, you should have heard the words spill out of her mouth; they’d have scoured the frying pan clean in no time!
She rigorously marked off a number of points on her sun damaged fingers: that she’d seen us dump rubbish in the bushes; that Michael had defecated between the protruding roots of one of the big Morten Bay Fig trees [4] situated behind the pavilion; and that we’d been catcalling women in their bikinis.
She also expressed her dislike for the slogan written down the side of Michael’s van. [5]
But, as if to prove my point, the woman’s son – his mind still free of his mother’s prejudices - was fascinated with the Kombi and shrieked with joy when Michael coaxed him over and invited him on board to explore the inner sanctum of a real backpacker van.
Who wouldn’t be excited?
The boy was about to clamber up through the open slide door when the mother spotted him and ran, horrified, towards the van, shouting at the top of her voice for him to get out and step away from the van.
Her anti-backpackerism was vile.
I immediately drew attention to her intolerance by highlighting the hypocrisy of her views. If she was at a local fair and a kindly fireman invited her son to erect his ladder or unfurl his hose, I’m sure she wouldn’t only let him, but encourage him too. She'd snap a few photos on her smart phone and tag her child on Facebook. Yet, look here: another professional invites her son to rummage around his vehicle [6] and she behaves as though her son is being kidnapped or defiled.
If the child wants to be the next Carlitos de Jeffers, I said, you should support him.
For a moment it appeared the woman had come to her senses. My name often has that effect. Unfortunately, however, as the child backed out of the Kombi he sliced his hand open on the rusted side panel and fell backwards onto the tarmac.
Boy, did he wail.
“Come now,” I said, bending down to see the damage. “You’ll never make it on the road if you cry like that.”
But the mother’s hatred had won out. He looked at us with pure anger before struggling to his feet and running uneasily to his mother’s leathery bosom. They stalked away in the general direction of the police station over on Gould Street, the mother shouting threats at both of us as she stemmed the bleeding from the back of the boy’s head and hand.
Michael was pretty quick to pack up afterwards and make his excuses to leave [7]. Another backpacker cowered by the discrimination aimed at our people.
Me? I’ll carry on. Very much the Martin Luther King Jnr figure of all travellers. A righteous man walking against the tide of hate.
[1] I still haven’t been asked to feature!
[2] Metaphorical. To avoid confusion, by “virginal” I mean virtuous; not that we’re virgins. I’ll champion the rights of backpackers until my dying day but the best lawyer in the world wouldn’t dare claim backpackers are chaste. There’s a reason I’m forced to carry a tube of Zorvirax around everywhere with me.
[3] A minor financial dispute with the owners Darryl and Quentin. We’ve since reconciled.
[4] Actually provides excellent cover!
[5] This stick shift is air cooled. Blow me, baby!
[6] Much better than a fire engine anyway. Can you sleep and cook on board a fire engine? I didn’t think so.
[7] Cryptically, Michael said "I can't afford to get caught again". Pressumably he hasn't paid the regististration on the Kombi.