16 - Setting up Camp
Once we had settled on a campsite for the night we slipped into a routine that
varied little from state to state, town to town. First, registering. On most nights
we would turn up at our chosen camp between 4.00pm and 6.00pm. If we
were early enough for the office to be open we would ask for a site, fill in the
forms - including (running outside because you could not remember it, even
after 12 weeks) vehicle registration number - and then get a map with
massive (often fluorescent) arrows drawn on to direct us to our specific plot.
If we were there after the office closed, which was nearly every night in
the first week or so of our travels, then we did 'Night registration' - as
mentioned earlier. Very rarely did we get turned away because sites were
full. The only time when we had a problem finding a place to stop for the night
- and on that occasion we visited three campsites before we even found one
where we could just park let alone have hookup - was, inevitably, our last
night.
Once registered the next task was to navigate the campgrounds in
search of our site number, which was generally site 101. This led us to
comment, "Do you put all the British tourists into Room 101?" (Snigger,
snigger). To which the intellectual serving us would respond "Oh, really?"
Fortunately we did not have to rely on these people to direct us to our
camping spot because most sites supplied us with very clear maps. More
often than not these were printed on one side of a folded A3 piece of paper.
The back of these booklets generally listed the site rules, and the inside was
usually a map of the surrounding area with numerous advertisements for local