Oz Experience

Our first night was to be spent in the town of Mount Gambier, where a rather unusual hostel awaited. It appeared that the local jail had been closed down in 1995 and some enterprising bugger had decided that the severe and limited facilities of a penal facility were perfect for backpackers. It's REALLY pretty cool. Rosco drove us up to the front gates with the barbed wire still on the walls and it was all very intimidating. Immediately, my mind teemed with thoughts of escape. Maybe I could construct a makeshift rope from bedsheets and body hair... 

We got signed in and found our cell, whoops I mean room. It was pretty basic all right, rather chilly with two hard single beds and - uh - a toilet. 

NO. NOT in a separate, nice little room. ONE toilet. RIGHT there. Now I don't know what stage you people have reached in your relationships, but it took me and Caro some considerable time before we even farted in front of each other.

(It took about 4 months, I recall.  Of course, it’s not important to state who was first to play a happy tune on the botty kazoo, but it was definitely not me.  I just recall being hugely relieved.  I'd been having to do the old slow, silent release for AGES and it just wasn't as satisfying as a decent blow-off. Anyway, I'm sure Caro regretted that first one as it certainly opened the floodgates of flatulence if you know what I mean.)

I've always felt that farting is a major step in a relationship. That breaking wind is a symbolic step that you are moving closer together, although at the actual moment you may well prefer to be further apart.  Weeing in front of each other means you are closer still.  Weeing ON each other means something else altogether, and I don't really want to know about you people who do that sort of malarkey.

Anyway, as you can imagine we both handled our shared toilet situation in a very mature manner: 

CARO: Right. I'm going to wee now. Look, just turn away will you? 
ME:      All right. 
CARO: Promise not to look? 
ME:      Mmmmmmmaybe. 
CARO: Well, now I can't wee. You're just making me nervous. 
ME:      Oh, all right, I promise. 
CARO: (Weeing). 
ME:      EEEyyeeeewwww! I can SMELL it! 
CARO: **** off you ****ing ****! 

It wasn't nearly as awkward for me. After all, as a boy I have to face the old urinal more often than I would like. If you are a girl, you will never have had to run the urinal gauntlet - unless you are REALLY talented, so you'll have to take my word for it, that ostensibly peeing against a wall with a bunch of other blokes is not a pleasant experience. Compared to that, sharing a bog with Caro was a doddle. And anyway, I peed sitting down which amazed Caro who thought men had to stand. She didn't realise it was no big feat to be ambidextrous in the old weeing department. 

Urinals:  An Aside
You girls just don't know how traumatic it all is.  The first problem you come to with urinals is "placement". There is a whole weeing etiquette, you see. You don't stand RIGHT NEXT TO ANOTHER guy if there's only the two of you peeing. You respect the guy's "space". Also, if you get too close there's the possibility that you MAY CATCH SIGHT OF SOME OTHER GUY'S THINGY. This would never do. Firstly, because you might get some sort of whole penis-envy thing going, secondly because he might spot you sizing him up, and thirdly because he might be weeing out of it at the time and that would just be DISGUSTING.  In fact, I once was in the unfortunate position of being joined at a urinal by someone who DID NOT KNOW THE RULES.  Not only did he stand too close, he PEED with great force and I experienced the horror of “splash-back”.  I tell you, not only did I wash my hands at the basin after, I washed right up to my elbows like a surgeon prepping for surgery.

Also, this guy tried to hold a conversation and men who talk in urinals really irritate me. They stand there, lad in hand, chatting away like nothing's happening. I never know where to look, as they discuss the weather, weeing all over the place. It's just impolite. 

The second problem at a urinal is "stage fright". This is when the weewee that's been backed up in your bladder for 3 hours suddenly decides it's not going ANYWHERE when you actually stand at the urinal with guys peeing like racehorses on either side. It's quite embarrassing, standing there, trying desperately to think soggy thoughts. And you're always sure that the other guys have NOTICED.  Like they're standing there, going "A-ha!! Someone with prostate trouble!" or worse they're imagining that you're not there to wee at ALL. Like you're there for some other nefarious, non weewee reason. 

For this reason, I usually dive into a cubicle if possible. But then of course you know the guys at the urinal are thinking, "Ahhh, went for the cubicle. Probably got a weird willy he's ashamed to show in public." 
It’s such a trauma.  I feel quite overcome writing about it.)

After our touching toilet interlude, we went off to get ourselves some dinner and have a bit of a chat. We met a German named Monika, who was very pleasant. She was saying that we were taking a "Japanese Tour", which basically consists of hopping off a bus, taking a picture and hopping back on again.  She also added that she knows of Japanese people who can't afford holidays, so send their cameras abroad with friends who will take the pictures FOR them and send them back home. At which point they presumably put together an album, going through it saying, "Ah, here's when my camera went to Paris! Here's my camera at Versailles! This one is when my camera got pissed at the Oktoberfest!" And so forth. 

We also got talking to a couple who had just come back from a tour of the outback. They were telling us about the various horrid experiences they had had, including a night of rain in which they slept in hammocks ("swags") with covers over their faces to keep out the wet, and possums climbing all over them. We mentioned to them how happy we were that we hadn't seen any huge spiders yet. They just laughed. 

"Just because you haven't seen them, doesn't mean they're not THERE," they replied ominously. The woman (I think her name was Ellen) complained about the Australian habit of downplaying the whole poisonous horrid creature thing they have going down here. "They say to you, 'Oh, that spider's harmless, don't worry about it.' What they actually MEAN is, 'Oh that spider will only put you in hospital for a couple of months.'" She wasn't very reassuring. 

For dinner, we were served some sort of soup that we were unsure of, and a chicken schnitzel salad. Meanwhile, Rosco had discovered Caro's purple and leopardskin boots with purple fishnet socks. He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to hurt himself. 

Then, after a couple of drinks it was back to the cell, and it WAS kind of an eerie feeling as that door banged shut behind me. And all I could hear in my head were these words: 

"Norman Stanley Fletcher, you are an habitual criminal who accepts capture as an occupational hazard and views imprisonment in the same CASUAL MANNER...”

(If you don't recognise this quote, then obviously you don't know your 1970's sitcoms nearly well enough.)

It was DARK too, with the silhouette of the bars illuminated by the moon on one wall.  As I lay there, I heard a little voice next to me: 

"I wonder if anyone's ever died in here?" 

Thanks Caro, thanks for that. I lay there for another hour, having a bit of a "Sixth Sense" moment before finally falling asleep to the sound of Caro peeing in the corner. 

The next morning we stopped off to pick up some groceries in Harrow, a small and mildly eccentric town where they put up little cardboard mock ups of things everywhere. For example they have an entire cardboard tent village.  Don’t ask.  They also have a cardboard mock-up of the first Aborigine cricketer,  frozen in action next to the stumps of the village green. Still, the locals were friendly and explained to us that Mount Gambier Prison had been built in 1865 and had held mostly paedophiles and drug dealers. It had been closed when a local bright spark had pointed out that perhaps it wasn't SUCH a good idea holding such types next to the PRIMARY SCHOOL.