Speed Bump

Picture it, Sicily 1917. We are camped at Captain Billy’s Landing on the NT side of QLD’s tip just south of Weipa, still on our Cape York trip. It’s a crap place, don’t ever visit there. But needless to say, we took advice from my sister’s mates and tracked all the way in, stayed one night, and tracked all the way out. It’s probably one night that you don’t want to remember as to this day it still brings me nightmares.

So tensions were already running high, and patience levels are becoming non existent and the following event occurred.

We are looking for the good camping spot. There were people already there but that’s ok, it’s a bloody big beach. So the Yota goes on the beach and nearly gets bogged. It had the camper on the back. Hope no one was listening on the 2-way as some language was artistic and colourful coming via those airways and it was quite certain with all concerned of what was actually being said in each of the vehicles without the use of 2-ways. We searched for a camp site and find one further down the beach.

So my brother-in-law drives Yota (evidence # 1 your Honor) in first as to set up the camper. Tonka is parked nearby. Camper set, we are quickly losing light and showers and dinner are required. As my sisters car is rigged to have a hot shower the car was unhooked from the camper and parked bullbar equal with rear of trailer side by side (evidence # 2 your Honor), but on a slight angle (evidence # 3 your Honor). The shower structure was set up at the front of the Yota (evidence # 4 your Honor) as the hot water shower runs through the engine. My beautiful niece and sister were first to share a shower, of which I was instructed to turn the car’s ignition on to run the engine to create the hot water.

Here are some key facts to this story.
* My sister’s car and Tonka are fitted with turbo timers. Each set to different times of shut down to ensure longer life of the turbos.
* As we are camping on the beach Yota drove to its position in Low 1, 4WD.

So I squeeze myself between the car and the camper to turn Yota’s ignition on. Open the door and as it’s my sisters car with the turbo timer, prior knowledge is that I can just start the car without doing crucial checks as we are both impatient individuals, a trait we received from our father, that can not wait for the car to shut down after the turbo has cooled down. Already naked my sister and niece were in the shower shelter, when I turned the car ignition on.

And then the car started to move. In low 1 Yota was slowly moving as it was parked in gear. Screams of “turn it off, turn it off” were coming from all concerned as my brother-in-law was right there at the campers kitchen. Simone is now feeling the spotlights intrude on the shelters wall, followed directly after with the steel bulbar. Shelter now starting to tip over, Tim is trying to skull drag his girls out of the way. Now how he was doing this was through the small opening in the top of the shower shelter. Time is of the essence. As its moving the space between the car and camper was becoming tighter and tighter. Tim is reaching in further and further to grab a hold of his beloved girls but the shelter is being run down and has now collapsed. I reached for the brake and gear stick, but couldn’t reach them. What to do. What to do. Working quickly and sacrificing my own temple of a body, I was able to turn the key off……just in time before the turbo kicked in and we would have had to wait 1 minute for it to shut down - of which you can be assured that Yota would have been 20 metres further down the beach with 2 squashed naked showering family members in its tracks.

Phew, what a life saving move I made. Towels thrown into the crumbled shelter, the girls came out a whole lot shaken from the recent proceedings.

After some minutes to allow heart beats to return to normal and tears to dry up they are back in having a shower, of course that is only after I started the car back up and they were meters away observing with vested interest that this time it wasn’t in gear and wasn’t in Low 1, my niece turns to her mum and ask “why did Kimmy try to kill us????”

This is Kim Duddee reporting from outside the Territory