One experience all Australians should steel themselves for is the school holiday camping ground toilet block shower challenge.
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There’s nothing quite like the busy family caravan park amenities survival test to examine the strength of one’s planning and execution techniques.
A high level of organisational skill is required to triumph in this assessment and succeed with a smile – emerging clean and unscathed physically, emotionally and psychologically – and ready to deal with an outdoor breakfast.
Strategies must be put in place to order one’s clothing as it is hung on the available hooks, to keep one’s precious, precious towel dry, and to make sure all cleaning agents are easily accessible. Decisions must be made about what to wear to and from the shower block, as wrong choices in this area alone can completely mar the experience.
Considerations in the footwear department are paramount and can mean the difference between a successful or dismal performance.
Lessons learnt by my 14-year-old at a sporting youth camp were telling.
Always check that a shower cubicle has a hook or peg of some nature before committing to undress within it.
If you do make the fatal mistake of choosing an ill-equipped facility, never attempt to throw your towel over the door ... and miss.
You should always make wise judgements about timing – choosing to attend when the cleaners have just completed their tasks, rather than waltzing in immediately after the mud-covered hockey team has left, minus their mud.
For me, after undertaking all of the above to the best of my ability – and ensuring I am not scalded or frozen by the water spraying from a shower head of questionable quality – my most challenging procedure in the shower block challenge is the application of pants to my freshly washed body.
I prefer to employ all my classical ballet toe pointing techniques learnt as a teenager, whilst holding the balancing pose I studied when watching Karate Kid in the 1980s. This finds me standing on one leg, mostly naked and cold in a hard wet place, pointing one foot at a time through the leg of my pants desperately trying not to touch the sides.
Needless to say, as I am now 47, this cannot possibly be a pretty sight. However, success brings an extreme sense of achievement and comfort. Happy school holidays.
Yolande Grosser