2023-05-02
We went camping for recreation but came face-to-face with what homelessness really means
By Beata Stasak, an Art and Eastern European Languages Teacher from Eastern Europe with upgraded teaching degrees in Early Childhood and Education Support Education
The Easter holidays arrived in the middle of April, with bucketing rain and gusty winds.
“The cyclone season's started up north again,” my husband sighed from the back seat of our truck, checking the camping gear packed next to him. “I hope we won't get flooded again, like last year.”
I shook my head as I struggled to see the road in front of us, as we raced through the back roads to join the South West Highway.
“Watch out! There's a kangaroo on the side of the road,” called my husband, looking up from the back seat where he was covering the holes in our old tent with special tape.
“You promised to do that last year! Everything's always done at the last minute. I still don't understand why we have to camp in this weather with our grown up kids.”
“Because they're coming from the East to visit us and it's tradition to camp in the karri forest. Like we did with them when they were little kids.” He held the green canvas against the side window to check his repair: “Better than new! It's waterproof now.”
“You mean that twenty year old tent that floods every year?” I laughed, as I joined the traffic on the main road.
“Where are all these campers going? Why don't they stay home for Easter?” my husband complained, at the invasion of caravans and motorhomes around us.
I turned into a side road to enter the Bunbury Fresh Market. “Oh yeah. We need to get plenty of meat! I've some ideas of how to roast it over an open fire.” He leapt quickly from the car as I tried to find a parking spot, without avail. I circled around slowly, hoping that his shopping wouldn't take too long. Soon enough, he appeared in the carpark holding a cardboard box of potatoes, onions and lots of meat.
“Kangaroo meat for goulash. Can you believe it?” He chuckled happily, tossing the box in the back. “They even had Hungarian Paprika.”
“How do you plan to start an open fire in the rain?” I asked, swapping to give him the driving seat. His optimism was undefeatable: “I have a heap of jarrah in the back. It always works.”
It took us another two hours through winding forest roads to reach Green Island.
“I love these tall forest trees,” my husband sighed with relief. “It feels like my home country in Eastern Europe.”
My stomach was churning as we zigzagged along the narrow, muddy paths, barely visible in the rain. “Watch out!” I screamed as the bullbar scraped the big white trunk of a giant karri, growing dangerously close to the track.
A rusty ‘Welcome to Green Island Campground’ sign appeared in front of us after the next turn.
“And here we are!” My husband spread his arms to encompass a vast green lawn surrounded by twenty-one small campsites. There were big concrete rings to hold open fires, all hidden from view by big karri trees. A small, swollen creek surrounded the campsite on three sides. There was a farmhouse on the hill above the campsite, surrounded by cleared farmland.
“I bet that bloody rooster wakes me up again like last year,” my husband muttered, driving slowly on the muddy road, checking the empty campsites that looked desolate in the drizzling rain and fog.
“You said we had to hurry in case there were no spots left,” I looked at him questioningly, as he pointed to a tent covered by a blue tarpaulin, next to the drop toilet. There was a car there, covered by a plastic tarpaulin.
“Someone's staying there.” I peered through the fog, seeing no visible sign of movement.
“There you go! They're coming now. That's one of the few campsites where you can stay as long as you like, for free.”
We stopped at our usual spot, campsite number twenty-one. The one furthest from the lawn, and the hustle and bustle. The rain stopped and we quickly unpacked, setting up the tent before the next bout of rain caught us unprepared.
“Hi there!” I heard, noticing a small and fragile elderly woman watching us from the side of the muddy road. She wore an old plastic raincoat, with trackpants and crocs.
I attached a line to a nearby tree branch so the tent wall would be held in place, and approached her: “Hi, I'm Sandy,” she stretched out a small, muddy hand and I shook it.
“Are you spending Easter here too? Did I see you here last year?”
She smiled, revealing missing teeth: “I've been here since Christmas.” I nodded. Before I could say anything else, Sandy grabbed my arm as she eyed the surroundings suspiciously, whispering: “I know that Johnny'll find me here eventually. He hit me bad, but Cherry'll sort him out. I've family living all over, even on the Sunshine Coast. My sweetheart's there right now and…”
I was swamped by Sandy’s monologue. I couldn't stop or interrupt her because she didn't stop to even catch her breath.
“Hey! The right side's collapsing,” my husband called from inside the tent, where he was blowing up our mattress.
“I have to go, Sandy.” I took her cold freezing hand in mine. “Join us next to the fire for dinner, once we've set up.” But she didn't hear me. Her cloudy eyes were lost somewhere above my head as she continued her monologue about people I didn't know, jumping from one name to another, from one corner of Australia to another.
Finally my husband’s head appeared outside the tent: “Hey lady! We've work to do here. We've no time to chat now.”
Sandy stopped, looking to where my husband was shouting from, as if waking up from a trance. She waved her hand and shuffled back to her lonely tent on the other side of the lawn.
I watched her moving away, then rushed quickly to finish our tent that was now collapsing after another shower of rain. Before darkness, caravans flooded in. Kids ran around on the wet lawn, kicking footballs. Family groups set up camping chairs around the firepits, piling them with logs.
“The dry season's finally finished and we can have open fires again,” my husband lit up his jarrah, bursting into warm flames. Our kids arrived in a car together, straight from the airport, to hungrily attack steaks cooked over the fire.
“Here's a whole snapper, cooked in the ashes of the fire,” my husband patted his daughter's arm. To his disappointment, she was not a red meat eater.
I left my family to wander through the darkness, looking for Sandy. Her tent and car remained there just like we'd passed it that afternoon. I was used to walking on our farm in darkness, and I followed the muddy track on which we'd entered the camp as newcomers passed by, their headlights blazing. Soon I found the Bibbulmun track which crisscrossed this area. I heard noise coming from bushes there.
Sandy was lying by the side of the path in the darkness, on wet leaves amongst prickly bushes. She sounded as if she was in pain. I touched the shoulder of her wet raincoat and she turned to me. “Sandy, don’t you want to join us next to the fire? We have plenty to share.”
She blinked and croaked: “People don’t like me. They stare at me. I'll stay here. I'm safe here.”
I shook my head: “You'll catch a cold. Don’t you know someone in Manjimup? Where you can go for the night?”
“I'll go to town tomorrow. Go now,” she said, waving her arm.
The next morning, I was rushing to the toilet next to Sandy’s campsite when I heard someone knocking on the door. “Are you there?” I heard Sandy whisper.
“Yes, Sandy. It's occupied. Just wait. I'll finish quickly.”
“Hurry up! I need to go to town,” she said impatiently.
“Ok, Sandy.”
“Do you want me to go find another one? Will you be long?”
I hurried up, zipping my pants. “Nearly done, Sandy.”
“I'll go to another one. Have a nice day.”
I opened the door but Sandy was gone. There was no sight of her in the camp. There was another dry drop on the other side of the lawn, but when I reached it there was no one there. I heard an engine and looked around to see an old station wagon pass, with Sandy driving.
I waved, relieved to see that she was hopefully going to find some warmth with someone in the nearby town. Over the next few days, when we drove via nearby Manjimup and Pemberton, I searched for Sandy’s car, but couldn't see it. I searched for her familiar face among the lonely figures of homeless people who sheltered in doorways as holidaymakers passed them, hurrying to pubs, visitor centres and other attractions.
On our last day, the children waved goodbye and campers packed up. As the wind blew and the rain continued to drizzle, we packed up our own tent to leave the forest campsite. The only site still occupied was number four. There was a sign scribbled on a torn piece of cardboard, written in fading black marker ink: ‘Sandy, the queen of Green Island’.
She was standing in front of her campsite, in her old torn rain coat and muddy crocs, waving us goodbye. She smiled her toothless smile, happy to reclaim Green Island again as her own. There were two big plastic bags filled with recycled clothes and out of date groceries next to her tent, labelled as gifts from charity.
I wound my window down and waved back: “Thanks for letting us stay on your island, Sandy.” My husband got out to place the box of old camping gear and leftover meat at her feet: “Where would you like to place our gifts, queen?”
She waved her hand casually toward the back of her tent, where her summer kitchen stood, undercover. He nodded: “I'll leave the esky. It'll keep the meat fresh.” She nodded without looking at him, waving goodbye.
At the end of another long weekend, we queued again with other Perth campers, making the same pilgrimage to their cosy homes in the city. I was thinking of Sandy. My husband turned the radio to Perth 7.20, hearing news about the rise of homeless people in Australia, especially among older and middle-aged women, now making up the biggest percentage.
“I wonder why that is?” my husband mused.
I turned on him angrily: “Really? Women continue to earn less than men employed in the same job. And their superannuaion is significantly lower as they lose the best part of their prime working time looking after their children. Then when their children are old enough to take care of themselves, they're too old to re-enter the workforce or they're assigned to jobs with low pay. And when sickness, mental health issues or old age catch them unawares, who do they go to for support?”
“They end up like Sandy,” he sighed.
I nodded, angry: “Exactly!” I turned back for a last glimpse of the tall tree forest that was disappearing quickly in the distance. Big, dark clouds hovered dangerously low above it. “One can only hope that the ranger who comes to check the campsite is a kind one.”
“He stopped by when you were hiking,” my husband nodded. “A big Aussie bloke. We talked about footy, He said the rules have changed. You pay online now for a site. And there's no such thing as a free camp site in a National Park, apparently.”
“So what does that mean for Sandy?” I asked him, alarmed.
He shrugged: “I don’t know. Probably she has to move from camp to camp to avoid overstaying or paying a fee. At some camps, you're only allowed to stay for three nights.”
“I asked him why the site was called Green Island. Apparently, it belonged to one old Englishman who tried to grow tobacco. There was only one patch of green grass surrounded by the creek where the kids play. After the tobacco crop failed, a few mining companies occupied the area to mine graphite before logging companies harvested the tall trees. The workers used the green patch to kick the footy.”
“Now that logging native trees is forbidden and the National Park has been reclaimed, the abandoned women of Western Australian will reclaim it as their island.”
I nodded, smiling. “Cheers to Sandy! I'm just grateful that she took all of our old camping gear. We're so lucky to have a permanent roof over our heads, aren’t we?”
“We truly are. And to have each other,” he squeezed my hand as we headed home to our farm.
"Sandy, the queen of Green Island, gave us a priceless gift that no one else could give us ‒ appreciation for each other and for our home. Life's short and fleeting. It's worth's measured by human connection and kindness.”
Header photo: Homeless woman on a bench. iStock Photos
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]