Skatey...The life of Les Skate

Skatey
The Life of Les Skate
But it wasn’t. I think it was a dog proof fence or something. We got through that and got
going again and we finally arrived at Grafton and pulled into the caravan park. I said to the
bloke,
‘Yeah, we’re back again.’
(I think he remembered me; they didn’t get a lot of travellers in those days.)
‘Which way did you come?’ he asked.
‘Oh, we’ve come from Glen Innes.’
‘Gawd!’ he said. ‘Nobody ever goes on that road!’
From then on we followed the coast down till we got somewhere near Sydney and scooted
around that. Probably came down through Goulburn, which was a good drive. We finally
got back home. Yes, it was a real adventure.
We were able to go back north a couple of times with the boys when they were very
young. We rented a house in Sydney once. Another time we stayed in a unit in Narooma I
remember. We went out on the putt-putt boat and caught a lot of fish.
One time we went over to South Australia, around Victor Harbour. Tim would have been
about three then. We had always wanted to see that area. So, we head off. It was a very
hot time of year and we stayed in Mt Gambier on the first night. (That’s a funny little old
joint.) The next day was going to be a hundred degrees, so we got up about 2 am, and
head off. There were rabbit plagues at the time and being dark still, we had the lights on.
Well we still couldn’t see the bitumen because it was covered in rabbits! We got through
all that eventually.
We’d booked ahead at a place already. The people
had just moved down from the Gold Coast and I
remember they had a photo of there on the wall … it
was just as I described it, yellow and pink cement
sheeting! And in the glass cabinet alongside, there
was this enormous great ornate cup with handles on
it. The daughter had won Miss Gold Coast or something! As soon as we had paid, we head
for our room. All we wanted was a cup of tea at that stage. Well the room was filthy. Lifted
up a cup and out shot a cockroach!
Well the room was filthy!
Lifted up a cup, and out shot
a cockroach!
Well we still couldn’t see the
bitumen because it was
covered in rabbits
When we looked out the window at the ocean, we
could see they’d built a retaining wall, about three
foot high out of Besser blocks, on the beach. What we
didn’t know was that they’d never bricked it together.
It was just sitting there. After we had rested a bit we
walked down to the beach. Julie picked Tim up and set
him on the top of the wall … and what happened? It collapsed and Tim was on the bottom!
One of the blocks jammed and smashed his arm. Well that was the end of it! I went and
told the bloke … and he accused us of knocking over the wall! I said, ‘Right, we’re out of
here.’ I don’t even remember whether we got our money back.
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