Adventure in a water park? Not today!
Why would you do it? Honestly? Who would stand in a queue with about a million other people for an hour – AN HOUR! – in searing near 40 degree heat on a concrete path that scorches the bottoms off your feet so you think you've been walking on coals? And all for a ten second ride down a slide? Someone who clearly doesn’t have a life, someone who is suffering from severe heat stroke and has become delusional, or someone who’s just tossed thirty two dollars per family member into the gate keeper’s coffers in return for a day in water wonderland.
Or so they thought.
That’s me – all three.
The things we do for our fourteen-year-olds! (And three friends – I’ll call them the Fem Four.) The last time I’d been to this water park on the Bellarine Peninsula – okay I’ll admit it was about ten years ago – you could actually see three feet in front of you without having to look over the top of somebody’s hat and you could swing your arms around without knocking ten people flying.
When my car noses up over the hill and I see what used to be rolling plains lined with cars, MCG-style, my stomach lurches. The gates opened at 10 am and it is now 10.30. Why hadn’t I attacked the pot with the wooden spoon an hour earlier? The Fem Four had wanted their cake and to eat it. Late night DVD then giggling time in their bunks before hitting slumber land.
Armed with car fridge loaded with cool drinks and food for the day, we head over hill and dale to the gates and then into the park – a seething mass of hot bodies. Mercifully I find a picnic table in the shade. This is to be my home for the next six or so hours, while the Fem Four spend their time in queues and enjoy the odd ride.
After staking my claim and ensuring the FFs have slipped and slopped sufficiently (then walk off with nary a backward glance, goodbye or a ‘sure you’ll be alright on your own all day?’), I discover that my immediate neighbours are three young mums with a bunch of kids to one side and a large Greek family on the other. The Greek family are setting out a big circle of chairs that threaten to encroach on my territory, so my first job is to mark my border with thongs and towels and bags. Lordy – what our basic instincts reduce us to!
The mums to my right turn out to be chain smokers, and as luck would have it, are upwind.
They engage in loud and bawdy conversation for the whole time I am here. So much for a quiet read, time for some journaling and a nap on the towel – not that there is anywhere to put the towel.
So I watch and listen and go for the occasional wander amongst the multitudes. And line up for that ride. To be truthful, it’s for the doughnut ride – not the slide, which is rather too vertically inclined for me. The reward for lasting in the queue while you can still stand on the raw flesh on the bottom of your feet is to insert yourself into a tyre and float downstream in a make-believe river, bumping and being bumped into by everyone else, while you jostle for a bit of water space. The FF have invited me to join them for this convivial experience, and in an odd sort of way I feel cloistered.
My picnic table is opposite the lake – a blessing – and every so often I imagine I feel a breeze off it. (The lake - not the picnic table) If I concentrate hard enough I can hear the rush of the waterfall over the background hum of voices and squeals. Every now and again a collective scream wafts across from the playground as a giant bucket of water unleashes its contents over the children on the climbing frame.
I realise it has gone quiet at the table next door and there is only one pawl of smoke heading my way. I get out my journal and start writing. Two minutes later the FFs arrive and slump at the table. Their enthusiasm has evaporated in the unrelenting heat. They sit in silence, sweaty, sleep deprived and tired of standing in queues. No one is game to suggest it, so I do.
Had enough?
The atmosphere immediately lightens and there is universal accord. Even though there are still two hours to go.
Do I complain?
Or so they thought.
That’s me – all three.
The things we do for our fourteen-year-olds! (And three friends – I’ll call them the Fem Four.) The last time I’d been to this water park on the Bellarine Peninsula – okay I’ll admit it was about ten years ago – you could actually see three feet in front of you without having to look over the top of somebody’s hat and you could swing your arms around without knocking ten people flying.
When my car noses up over the hill and I see what used to be rolling plains lined with cars, MCG-style, my stomach lurches. The gates opened at 10 am and it is now 10.30. Why hadn’t I attacked the pot with the wooden spoon an hour earlier? The Fem Four had wanted their cake and to eat it. Late night DVD then giggling time in their bunks before hitting slumber land.
Armed with car fridge loaded with cool drinks and food for the day, we head over hill and dale to the gates and then into the park – a seething mass of hot bodies. Mercifully I find a picnic table in the shade. This is to be my home for the next six or so hours, while the Fem Four spend their time in queues and enjoy the odd ride.
After staking my claim and ensuring the FFs have slipped and slopped sufficiently (then walk off with nary a backward glance, goodbye or a ‘sure you’ll be alright on your own all day?’), I discover that my immediate neighbours are three young mums with a bunch of kids to one side and a large Greek family on the other. The Greek family are setting out a big circle of chairs that threaten to encroach on my territory, so my first job is to mark my border with thongs and towels and bags. Lordy – what our basic instincts reduce us to!
The mums to my right turn out to be chain smokers, and as luck would have it, are upwind.
They engage in loud and bawdy conversation for the whole time I am here. So much for a quiet read, time for some journaling and a nap on the towel – not that there is anywhere to put the towel.
So I watch and listen and go for the occasional wander amongst the multitudes. And line up for that ride. To be truthful, it’s for the doughnut ride – not the slide, which is rather too vertically inclined for me. The reward for lasting in the queue while you can still stand on the raw flesh on the bottom of your feet is to insert yourself into a tyre and float downstream in a make-believe river, bumping and being bumped into by everyone else, while you jostle for a bit of water space. The FF have invited me to join them for this convivial experience, and in an odd sort of way I feel cloistered.
My picnic table is opposite the lake – a blessing – and every so often I imagine I feel a breeze off it. (The lake - not the picnic table) If I concentrate hard enough I can hear the rush of the waterfall over the background hum of voices and squeals. Every now and again a collective scream wafts across from the playground as a giant bucket of water unleashes its contents over the children on the climbing frame.
I realise it has gone quiet at the table next door and there is only one pawl of smoke heading my way. I get out my journal and start writing. Two minutes later the FFs arrive and slump at the table. Their enthusiasm has evaporated in the unrelenting heat. They sit in silence, sweaty, sleep deprived and tired of standing in queues. No one is game to suggest it, so I do.
Had enough?
The atmosphere immediately lightens and there is universal accord. Even though there are still two hours to go.
Do I complain?
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