The bounty bequeathed by departing campers on my river has reached an exciting new level: forget the yards of carpets, plastic for waterslides, star pickets and pallets — now they’re leaving us mangled marquee frames as well, thoughtfully placed upside down.
We found this exciting contribution down at the sandbar on the weekend, setting ever-higher standards in abandoned rubbish sculpture.
I like to think of it as a present for me, carefully chosen by a dog lover who thought I could do with the shelter. Although they took the canvas cover with them, perhaps as a present for another dog of their acquaintance.
So I’m not sure exactly what use I can make of this inspiring structure and I’m waiting for some signal from The Boss, who wasn’t quite as pleased to see it as we dogs were.
He reckons our sandbar must be on a couple of those camping apps that tell people where they can camp for free.
He hasn’t been able to find which app it is but says it would explain the surge in campers’ gift-leaving during the pandemic. Whenever Melbourne was locked down, our sandbar seemed to be a magnet for returning Melbourne people, hunkering down in the bush until they could sneak home.
Apart from advertising the natural features of our spot, like the sandbar running into the Goulburn — surrounded by wattles and red gums, visited by thrushes, bee-eaters, king parrots, kookaburras and many other birds every day, The Boss suspects the app must also say it’s a fine place to dispose of bulky, unwanted household items, broken camping equipment and anything else too damaged or damp to conveniently put back in the caravan or camper and take home.
Not to mention used disposable nappies, Jim Beam cans, empty cheese packets and plastic trays half full of worms; rubbish bags thoughtfully tied and left beside the fire for The Boss to take away and lots of unwanted poo, usually topped with toilet paper and spread along the river bank, hiding coyly behind various trees.
After he shelled out $29 at the transfer station recently for someone’s discarded double mattress, The Boss said he was thinking it might be better to let the campers’ gifts keep piling up into a small version of Mt Everest — until the camping app finally announces, “sandbar and surrounds chocker-block full, move on to the next one”.
That might put a natural brake on visitor numbers as the word gets around that there’s not much room to camp between the piles of carpet underlay, burned and bent picnic tables, broken chairs, torn shrimp nets, smashed beer bottles and McDonald’s wrappers.
Pretty soon it would become a favoured spot for garage sales as the value of the campers’ trash increases. The Boss says the only difference between the campers with a flimsy tent and 20-year-old Commodore and those with the big RV complete with motor mower and motorbikes on the back is that the rubbish left by the latter is of the bulkier, more expensive kind.
Such as this discarded tent frame, which The Boss reckons is quite elaborate and would have cost several hundred dollars. He thinks they didn’t tie it down properly before the wind storms that came through a week or so ago.
“Just bad luck, General,” he said. “And sometimes bad luck happens to the right kind of people.” Woof!
The General is The Boss’s dog. For more yarns, visit sheppnews.com.au/thegeneral
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