MAY YOUR LIFE BE FREE OF DUMP POINTS

My journey at this moment is a series of ‘firsts’. And Sunday was no exception. As I drove into the beautiful town of Orbost , from the tall gum forests along the A1, it was just waking from it’s slumber. The wide shady trees and lovely Park, with clean toilets and large grassed areas reflected the pride of the townspeople. And right next to the Park was the greatest little information Centre I have seen yet. An old log cabin, frozen perfectly in time, welcomed you in, with geese still lording in the tiny garden and logs ready for the fire inside. I literally stepped back in time. But the lovely lady there was more than in step with today. You see I had a mission to fulfill! I had to find a dump point. Not the most glorious of tasks, but one which I couldn’t put off any longer! And, believe me, I would have if I could have. But she wasn’t bothered at all and happily explained there was one down the end of the street behind the information centre.

Now it’s not that I’m adverse to cleaning up man’s natural body wastes. I worked in Health for thirty years! But it was the mechanics of the blasted porta potti that bothered me. It had been hard enough setting the damn thing up. Having to empty it as well was not on my list of much anticipated tasks. And I am positive I have a sixth sense about these things. My gut did not want to do it!

Luck was on my side, however, in one way… no-one else was about. In every other way, luck had done a runner! As I climbed out of the van, all looked good. Nice big blue dump lid, which opened up into a remarkably clean chute type hole. Hose and water next to it. OK. So all I had to do was empty the porta potti into it. Then rinse it and the dump point. No I didn’t work this out all by myself. It had instructions on a post.

I opened up the back of my van and looked at my porta potti. I looked at the dump point. I looked at

my portapotti. I looked at the dump point. I looked at my porta potti. Look, I know it came apart somehow, I just couldn’t fathom how. But wait. I had a booklet. Alas, the main word here was… HAD. After looking in every crevice of the van for half an hour, and becoming extremely hot and sweaty, I had to admit I was without any diagrams to show me what the hell to do! Now this is where I used to excel. Problem solving skills. And to my amazement I still had them. Or to be precise, I had the internet. And sure enough old ‘you tube’ did not desert me. Let me tell you trying to watch a video on a laptop whilst unlocking a non too light (lets not go into detail here) porta potti in half is a skill in itself. As I somehow ended up with half the tank resting against my boobs (it was clean, I swear it was clean), trying to find the handle the guy was telling me to lift and NOT touch the other handle which he said could be embarrassing and messy (I swear he sniggered as he said this), I staggered to the dump. Turning the plastic pipe on it around and unscrewing it’s cap, I teetered over the beconing  dump hole. Then I closed my eyes. Whoosh. It was a few minutes before I dared open them, but I felt dry and pretty splashless. And I was. Oh the relief! I won’t go into how long it took me to wash everything and put it back together again, but let’s just say I will never forget how to empty one of the blasted things again!

 And so after a short sojourn around lovely Orbost to fill up with petrol, and get a much needed coffee, I headed for the 107, which ran alongside the Snowy River down to Marlo. Actually, I really headed for one of the pretty little camping spots along there as I had had enough. I needed to pull over and rest for the rest of the afternoon and night.The sh.. may not have hit the fan in this case, but it had taken hours of careful manoeuvers to make sure it didn’t! And it didn't help the Fibro either!

Till next time - May your dump points in life be splashless!

The Grey Chihuahua