Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Oops another rant! - Balgal Beach


Walking around in the early morning looking to take a sunrise photo but its all much the same and the light not special. Then I see a caravanner, parked illegally overnight by the beach, and he's taking his black water trolley cassette out of the van. He walks it down toward the beach and finds a tree where he empties it. I have my camera in my hand, tempted to record the moment but I stop. This is not who I want to be, the monitor, the recorder of things not right. I think to myself; if I wasn't here it would still be happening and an old Polish saying comes to mind "not my circus, not my monkeys". Shit happens and in this case I know, I saw.


The ranger is coming today, every Monday and Thursday apparently. All the overstaying free-loaders have to move out of the free camps before he arrives and records their vehicle regos. (48 hour maximum stay here and only once in 7 days).


I overhear my neighbour talking to others and the story goes like this: an ever increasing group of people, mostly with out-of-state plates, move from free camp to free camp in this area for months at a time. The council are aware and try to move them along so that bona fide travellers can enjoy the area as well.

The story teller expressed indignation to her audience about this sort of behaviour but later in the conversation inadvertently admits to having stayed 4 night already.

The system the council employs is working better than none at all, but eventually things will have to change and probably big time. But maybe that's what the environment needs?

I think maybe I'm looking for a road less travelled by! (to quote MGB and Robert Frost).