On Things I'd Rather Not Leave Out Pt.I: Damnation
We're back from the weekend at the dam. As is the nature with us, this was a trip that had it's incidents, albeit only minor ones.
When we first arrived, it was unsettlingly difficult to find any trees on the premises. Expecting a very hot and miserable weekend, it wasn't easy to ignore the state of the ablution blocks either. I know what you must be thinking: "you've gone camping and you're complaining about the sparse facilities". Bearing in mind that we did pay to use the facilities, they were considerably sub-standard even for a camping ground.
There were numerous long-drop styled outhouses along the road next to the camping grounds. All of these were spider-ridden, filthy and in varying states of decay. The ablution blocks, with the exception of one, were far worse. There were no ceilings in these buildings and this made it possible for thousands of spiders to nest less than a metre from our heads (many of these actually dropped down on their little menacing webs from hell to greet us). Admittedly many of the eightlegged demon-spawn were "daddy long-legs", and had they been only this specie it would not have been a problem, however the friendly bastards that came to greet us were of a less temperate mould and certainly hurt my comfort-level. Jess is especially repelled by spiders and we ended up using the bathroom at the entrance to the grounds most of the time. This one was the exception as it had a ceiling and very few spiders at all (all of which were the long-legs caste).
We decided to give Steve his iPod on the first evening. It was wrapped in an old tissue box with very scrappy brown-paper bits wrapped with masking tape. He wasn't discouraged by it's appearance and tore right through the Steers paper bag wrapping to find the Shuffle sitting there all pretty. He was taken aback and, as Evan put it, "when you get an awesome gift like this you sometimes don't think you say thank you enough. Y'know, like out of shock."
Opening the gift to load up songs didn't faze Steve's and he carried it around his neck for a large part of the weekend. When Jess and I went to pick it up, a sales person asked if I knew about the coupon deals that they give. How it works is that if I were member, I would receive a coupon with every email that they send me. I could have saved R250 on the purchase. Needless to say I've signed-up, not that I'm expecting to make any purchases in the near future but it's always good to have options.
Saturday was pretty long. I tried to learn how to fish. Steve brought an extra rod with and I was eager to try it out. I was terrible but at least I fared better than Shane did. I cast skew, my mielie-bomb kept losing it's ammo, the bait kept washing off and not one of us caught anything. Ev had a nibble but couldn't produce anything from it. Eventually Shane's brashness and, well let's face it, idiocy saw him snap his rod just above the reel.
Later on in the evening there was some horseplay and Shane couldn't take what he dished out. Despite my small involvement, he decided to target me in his mislead rage and then started venting at Jess. The whole incident highlighted how much of a child the guy is and it just reinforced my belief that he has very little respect for his friends and even less for women. The next morning I woke up at around 6 o'clock and he had already left.
The dirt-roads around the camping area were fun to navigate around. Some tight corners and a few drifting opportunities made it quite a delight.
When we first arrived, it was unsettlingly difficult to find any trees on the premises. Expecting a very hot and miserable weekend, it wasn't easy to ignore the state of the ablution blocks either. I know what you must be thinking: "you've gone camping and you're complaining about the sparse facilities". Bearing in mind that we did pay to use the facilities, they were considerably sub-standard even for a camping ground.
There were numerous long-drop styled outhouses along the road next to the camping grounds. All of these were spider-ridden, filthy and in varying states of decay. The ablution blocks, with the exception of one, were far worse. There were no ceilings in these buildings and this made it possible for thousands of spiders to nest less than a metre from our heads (many of these actually dropped down on their little menacing webs from hell to greet us). Admittedly many of the eightlegged demon-spawn were "daddy long-legs", and had they been only this specie it would not have been a problem, however the friendly bastards that came to greet us were of a less temperate mould and certainly hurt my comfort-level. Jess is especially repelled by spiders and we ended up using the bathroom at the entrance to the grounds most of the time. This one was the exception as it had a ceiling and very few spiders at all (all of which were the long-legs caste).
We decided to give Steve his iPod on the first evening. It was wrapped in an old tissue box with very scrappy brown-paper bits wrapped with masking tape. He wasn't discouraged by it's appearance and tore right through the Steers paper bag wrapping to find the Shuffle sitting there all pretty. He was taken aback and, as Evan put it, "when you get an awesome gift like this you sometimes don't think you say thank you enough. Y'know, like out of shock."
Opening the gift to load up songs didn't faze Steve's and he carried it around his neck for a large part of the weekend. When Jess and I went to pick it up, a sales person asked if I knew about the coupon deals that they give. How it works is that if I were member, I would receive a coupon with every email that they send me. I could have saved R250 on the purchase. Needless to say I've signed-up, not that I'm expecting to make any purchases in the near future but it's always good to have options.
Saturday was pretty long. I tried to learn how to fish. Steve brought an extra rod with and I was eager to try it out. I was terrible but at least I fared better than Shane did. I cast skew, my mielie-bomb kept losing it's ammo, the bait kept washing off and not one of us caught anything. Ev had a nibble but couldn't produce anything from it. Eventually Shane's brashness and, well let's face it, idiocy saw him snap his rod just above the reel.
Later on in the evening there was some horseplay and Shane couldn't take what he dished out. Despite my small involvement, he decided to target me in his mislead rage and then started venting at Jess. The whole incident highlighted how much of a child the guy is and it just reinforced my belief that he has very little respect for his friends and even less for women. The next morning I woke up at around 6 o'clock and he had already left.
The dirt-roads around the camping area were fun to navigate around. Some tight corners and a few drifting opportunities made it quite a delight.
At 15:46 Debaser mumbled incoherently.
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