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Page 18 <strong>Templer</strong> <strong>Record</strong> 739 – June 2011<br />
and getting back in<br />
touch with their primal<br />
urges. The camaraderie<br />
started to build on the<br />
bus trip, aided by a<br />
quick detour to visit<br />
our mate Dan Murphy,<br />
who obligingly helped<br />
to lubricate and loosen<br />
tongues. Introductions<br />
were swift and names<br />
quickly forgotten, but<br />
bonds were formed,<br />
jokes and innuendo<br />
flowed freely, and by<br />
the time we spilled out<br />
of the bus at our destination, bro-mances were starting to blossom. Serious<br />
catching up of old friends and interrogation of new friends carried on late<br />
into the night by the glow of the fire. Fermented malt cordial (some distilled<br />
and some not) was knocked back, nibblies were eaten, theories on how to<br />
understand women were exchanged and the problems of the world were<br />
discussed and solved before midnight. At some point we all managed to find<br />
(separate) beds to try ‘planking’ on and the frosty night air was filled with<br />
the sound of many logs being slowly cut with handsaws of various sizes (aka<br />
snoring).<br />
Saturday 14 th May<br />
Bacon, eggs... what? Its 10am already. Pete, our mentor and ‘bloke who is<br />
supposed to look after us’, had arrived and had organised a morning for us<br />
with Suzie who, he assured us, was ‘difficult to control’. Suzie was able to<br />
take on 4 blokes at a time in the mud whilst showing up how poor our<br />
<strong>com</strong>munication and control skills were. Eager to meet this legendary<br />
woman, we all marched to the race track (aka swamp with tyres thrown in)<br />
to discover that Suzie was a 4WD manual Suzuki car with some challenging<br />
modifications. The brake pedal was in the front passenger seat floor and the<br />
clutch was on the rear passenger floor. The ‘driver’ operated the steering and<br />
accelerator, the front passenger the brake, gearshift and handbrake. One of<br />
the rear passengers worked the clutch and the ignition whilst the other rear<br />
seat passenger was the only person in the car ‘allowed’ to talk and was thus<br />
required to direct proceedings. Time penalties were meted out for stalling<br />
the vehicle, sounding the horn, crunching the gears or touching the tyres<br />
that lined the race circuit. Just in case that was not <strong>com</strong>plex enough for<br />
‘mere males’, 3 driver rotations were scheduled into the drive around the<br />
circuit.
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