A Few Misfortunes

I wandered back to the Perth train station after my day at "the office." I bought a two-zone ticket from a vending machine, showed it to a guard, walked to the platform and got on a train just as it pulled in, and twelve minutes later disembarked, showed my ticket again at the exit, and found the #424 bus stop back to Karrinyup Waters Resort.

The bus pulled up shortly, and my ticket included a free transfer.

"Do you know Karrinyup Campground?" I asked the driver.

He nodded, and ten minutes later, he dropped me off right in front of the campground.

I was pretty satisfied with myself as I walked through the gate and towards my tent site behind the camper's kitchen.

And then I remembered—the wind! The wind had been hellacious today. I hadn't felt it high in my office tower, but the weather reports had been scary enough that both whale-watching outfitters I'd contacted had cancelled today's trips—that was why I'd booked for tomorrow and worked today.

Last night's wind and rain had been bad enough that I was pretty sure my tent would have blown over if I hadn't been in it. The leak hadn't been too bad but the tent had been wet inside as well as outside.

But the tent was sturdy, right? I thought back to the German tent that had collapsed on me and Herr Marlboro in Uganda in 2005.

No way had my little tent made it through today, I thought. I should have taken it down for the day.

When I got to my site, the night staff guy was waiting for me.

"It was flapping around like crazy so I took it down," he explained.

At least it hadn't blown away.

One of my tent poles had split lengthwise. I set about the task of re-erecting my tent, and was glad that I'd stopped by the dollar store in Perth to pick up a whisk broom.

The staff guy loaned me a pole for the night and my tent seemed not too worse for wear. There was no wind that night—just too many quacking ducks—and in the morning, I got up before five, excited to be going whale-watching today.

I unzipped my tent to jump out and go to the shower and--

Oh.

Flat tire on my rental Hyundai.