Escape from Surfmoot - Backstory of Rovers

Surfmoot was... well how can I put it?  I would like to use my most commonly used word to describe what happens at an alarming frequency in my life which is 'eventful'... but some how I don't think that word is powerful enough for how Surfmoot turned out to be.

I am a little obsessive with the way I tell my stories, and I just can't no matter how I try, cut out pieces of a story if I feel they in some way contribute to the overall story.  This will be a trilogy of a story, a story of hope, danger, lots of walking and down right strangeness.  I bring you part one, enjoy =)

To bring everyone up to speed, basically when you're a youngster you can join the Scouts, and I dunno, as you get older the name changes but it is essentially the same thing.  When you are between the ages of 20 - 26 you're now under the title of 'Rovers'.  Once a year the Rovers hold a massive camping trip where Rover crews from all over Victoria (Australia) come up basically to sit around and drink a frightening amount of alcohol for about 4 days straight.  There is also a heap of other activities like a live band at night, competitions and so on... sounds fun right?

To state I am not in scouts nor rovers, and have never officially been so, ever... I just tag along to an event here or there for the fun of it lol.  I actually tried Rovers for the first time a few months back.

It was meant to go for 4 days starting from the Saturday, and after reading about it and hearing how great it was from Sabrina (who had been the previous year) I was extremely psyched although nervous as I didn't know anyone else there besides Sabrina but I am pretty good at making friends so I was optimistic in a good way.

Anyways, we arrived about 1pm on the Saturday... and long story short we finally had our tent set up 3 hours after our arrival... we had no freakin' idea where our 'crew' was set up and everyone we found was either useless, retarded or drunk...majority was all 3.  After our tent was up and we had settled down for the most part, it was time to meet our... I dunno what they were, I would like to say 'friendly welcoming fellow crew members' but that would be a lie.  But whatever, you get the point.

We spent the day... blending in with the fellow campers.  If you read the previous time I tried rovers (as linked above) you will recall that the people weren't exactly my kind of people and I struggled to bond with any of them very well but still kept an open mind.  The same thought process applied here but with a more optimistic view then before as I figured 'I didn't really fit in with the previous Rovers I had met, and I assume most other Rovers will be similar, but this time there is a much greater amount of them therefore surely there are at least a few that will fit my taste'.

It wasn't until later that night that my answer to that philosophy was answered.

We sat around, drinking as usual, for... the entire day...  I dunno, I guess I thought people would get up and do stuff?  Nope, no one moved... except to go grab more drinks, or to pull each others pants down as a 'hilarious' prank, or to slap another individual for reasons I could not fellow due to the excessive amounts of shouting.  My spirits had wavered slightly at this stage, but apparently at nightfall the real fun began in the form of a live band, sweet.

Before nightfall though I befriended a guy by the name of Daniel.  He seemed cool enough, didn't really talk much but was friendly enough to have a chat, we bonded pretty quickly and before I knew it us 3 (him, Sabbi and myself) were exploring the camp for activities to do to pass the time for the night time entertainment.  Seemed like a great guy.

This perception changed slightly when he found this giant bug on the floor... he kept trying to catch it but it was too quick, I told him to forget about it but he carried on and eventually caught it to which he threw it out me and it got stuck on my jumper lol... I had no idea whether to laugh or be disturbed... I think I did both at the same time.

Alas nightfall inevitably came and so to did the live band that was promised.  It started off a little slow but after my nerves had calmed (which I give great credit to Daniel, the guy was awesome!) it really picked up!  I was a little tired so I resembled a bit like a stunned zombie who had just had a few energy drinks, which isn't what you should be when you had live entertainment, but he came along with a bundle of enthusiasm which really rubbed off on me.  In the end the night turned out freakin' awesome,  the band was great, they played some fantastic songs and the crowd was really into it so yeah, things were definitely looking up.

By about midnight though I was exhausted and as much as I wanted to stay I just couldn't last any longer, plus I was a little drunk... ok a lot... so Sabbi and I left Daniel to his own mischief (at the time he had his top off and was moshing at the front of the stage lol...).  We sat down in the hall as it was lit and warm (with a side purpose of it being a good hiding place from Daniel as well) and I munched on some potato cakes to sober up.  Somehow he managed to find us (he claims he checked everywhere, I got the feeling that even included the inside of our tent but I was too scared of the answer to ask).  He insisted we go back out for the final songs so reluctantly I did.  We bobbed around a little longer then snuck away again and sat back at camp.

A while later he comes back, pretty drunk, and we chat a little... this is where things got strange.  Daniel decided to tell me a 'funny' story which went a little something like this:

"Tim, this prick from work, wanted some of me smokes, so I told him to **** off and laughed in his face"

"Ha, funny... who is Tim?"

"Oh, Tim was my boss, I don't work for that **** anymore though"

"Fair enough,  I wouldn't wanna work for him either" (I didn't really have much to say lol...)

"Oh nah he was a good bloke, just the next week after I had told him to **** off, I got chased and bashed!"

"Oh serious? That's messed up..."

"Nah man, was great fun!"

He then cracks up laughing.

I kid you not people...

After some insistence we managed to head to the tent to get some sleep... to which I stayed awake due to people still partying and didn't manage to fall asleep until 5am... sigh well that gives me 5 hours of sleep at least with our plans to wake up at 10am.

The next day is to be continued...