I arrived back at my tent and noticed a few others having taken refuge in the school camping area, no worries there was heaps of space :-) Knowing that I would be in for a big Saturday, I quickly sorted out some food, brushed my teeth and happily crawled into the Hubba for an early night. I managed to sort of fall asleep before a (camping) "party" arrived at the site next to me .. what sounded like 4 couples in 2 cars decided that the spot next to the tiny little Hubba tent would be perfect for their reunion. Ah .. well, at first I was confident that the lovely young people would stop shouting and obviously be so considered that they would turn the car's lights off as soon as they had managed to raise their tents .. since those beams, apart from lighting up their efforts with the tents, were making it look like daytime inside my Hubba.
In the end I had to make my way out of the tent and give the happy campers the most unhappy Jutlandian grumpy look I can muster without adding sound effects. It partly worked - they turned the light off, but kept on drinking and chatting. Having made it out of the tent I decided to take advantage and visit the bathroom. Oh boy, Oh boy what a change a couple of hours make! The campsite was more than full, but with a steady stream of desperate wannabe campers flowing in from Melbourne, Tidal River campsite had turned into a cauldron of madness with people and cars moving around between the closely packed tents seeking out those last few square meters of space needed for a tent.
Returning back at my tent after my little evening walk, I realized that I would be a rough night. Two additional camping parties had arrived and taken a liking to the area bordering the Hubba - I was surrounded and there was no way out!
The seagulls woke me up early Saturday morning - I had managed only a few hours of sleep, but with only one full day in the bush I could not afford wasting time sleeping - and seriously, I would be happy being out of the way before my neighboring campers began waking up. The plan of escaping was dropped as soon as I looked out of the tent. There was no way I could maneuver the oil-ship sized Ford Falcon out of the campsite - in fact is was nearly difficult to navigate myself through the chaos of guy ropes, tents, cars, beer cans, chips and other seagull feed.
I ended up having a great morning around Tidal River after all! A walk along the beach followed by a shorter excursion into the bush made me nearly forget about the population density around my tent. A visit to the Visitor Centre cheered me up even more, the rangers were incredible helpful and I managed to get an overnight camping permit for Sealers Cove, which can only (unless you have a boat) be accessed by following a 10.2km bushwalking route across the peninsula .. that should be sufficient to scare off most of my still sleeping neighbors. :-)
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