Suzanne Harrington: Contending with real and prank terrors at wilderness camping
Suzanne Harrington: 'In the morning I wonder if I have dreamed it, but there are pellets of kangaroo poo in my shoes.'
Going camping in Australia is quite different from going camping in Europe, in that it’s potentially life threatening.
Top of the list are drop bears, fearsome creatures who drop from trees to attack from above — the fanged, venomous, flesh-eating cousins of koalas. Watch out for the drop bears, warns a straight-faced Australian neighbour, as we load the car for our trip.
Before I have a chance to add them to my list of Things To Be Afraid Of, my daughter shows me a video of a nervous Scottish TV reporter in goggles, gloves, and full body armour, being prepped for an encounter with one of these vicious, unpredictable beasts.
She remains rigid with fear as she is handed a ‘drop bear’ — who looks like a dozy, sleepy, cuddly koala — before her Aussie colleagues can’t contain themselves any longer and fall around gasping with laughter. Aussies get a great kick out of pranking foreigners, and drop bears are their greatest national prank.
Everything else here is very real — giant crocodiles that can eat you, small spiders that can poison you, big spiders that can give you a heart attack.
All the snakes. All the sharks. Deadly jellyfish. Kangaroos that can punch you in the face. The cutesy duck-billed platypus emits a venom so painful even morphine can’t soothe it.
We set off in a 42°C heatwave to a campsite so remote you have to bring your own water. It’s more of a wilderness with a sign nailed to a gum tree saying ‘don’t feed the giant lizards’.
A handful of 4x4s are dotted around, all with pop-up rooftop tents and step ladders that fold away when you’re driving. Rooftop tents mean that nothing can get at you when you’re asleep.
They sleep two, which means that I can’t squeeze in with my daughter and her boyfriend — they might not enjoy that — so I will be sleeping on the ground in a ‘swag’. A swag is a kind of canvas polytunnel for one — you lie into it and zip yourself in.
I should mention I am an arachnophobe. I’d rather wrestle a dozen drop bears with rabies than encounter a single Irish spider... but while drop bears are made up, spiders exist. And in Australia they are the size of side plates.
“Don’t worry”, says my daughter’s boyfriend. “They don’t generally live on the ground.” How comforting, I think, as I zip myself into my swag on the ground.
Just the giant lizards to think about then. I saw a few earlier, patrolling the perimeter of the campsite, looking for food — metre-long monitors with flicking forked tongues and eagle-like talons.
Still, at least they’re not spiders. And they only attack when cornered. Also, they’re not nocturnal, which means they will hopefully be going to bed soon.
I wake in the night to an oddly familiar sound. A nibbling noise, all around me. Like the sound that sheep make when they’re eating grass. Is something chewing through the canvas? Am I about to be eaten alive, feet first?
Cautiously, propped on one elbow, I unzip the bit nearest my head, ready to scream for help. There, inches from my head, silhouetted in moonlight, is a mob of kangaroos. Grazing in a circle around me, near enough to touch.
In the morning I wonder if I dreamed it, but there are pellets of kangaroo poo in my shoes. Camping in Europe will never be the same again.
