Moreton Island

​ Going to Moreton Island was scary because we only have a little car. The packing up to go camping took a long time and everyday it got closer to going I could tell Dad was worrying about the way the car would cope.

I told Dad the day before that I had a dream about the car bottoming out and he ignored my advice.

Going to the ferry was very exciting but we had the smallest car on the deck of the boat. You know something is wrong when you are the unique one. Every other car was a truck, twice the size of our car. The only concern I had was us getting stuck on a lonely track up the end of the island somewhere.

When the doors of the ferry came down and we drove onto the beach I felt a strange feeling come across my body. It was a sense of danger and freedom together in adventure. The danger was realising we only had ourselves to rely on. The freedom was realising we only had ourselves to rely on.

From the bottom of the sand dunes I could not see how we could cross over to the other side but we were going to anyway. Young people were camping all along the beach on the western side of the island. Had they thought to themselves that they could not make the crossing to the eastern beach and stayed where the sand and beach was calm? Dad seemed uninterested in calm waters and easy sand dunes. This was his style of holiday. Going places where the dunes are high and the seas rough.

The drive along the beach going north was beautiful because the awe of adventure was dripping from the waters’ deep blue rays. Rays that gave no clue of their origin but declared their destination. This is the feeling I got from the watery seashore. From the shore we then turned up the beach and into the island interior. The bush was grabbing at the car from all directions. The car was surviving on speed and agility to drive through it. Every other car used brawn and weight to beat a road through to the other side. The reality is the sand dunes are there for forests and birds not cars and trucks.

Going along the track the feeling I got was a one of isolation and honour to be here. Isolation from other people and honour from the island allowing us to trespass. The island is a foreign power. Having to ask to trespass is being graceful to its beauty. Families that ask get through the interior. Those that don’t get bogged.

We nearly made it but got bogged in the last sandy stretch before the beach. The sand tried to stop us but Dad remembered to take these boards that the car uses to climb out with. Every time we got bogged we used the boards to get out. The boards are like treating the sand as water, and a bridge across.

Finally, we made it to the camp site. It was right behind the beach. The dunes surrounded us and every tree draped down around us. I was scared once again. The forces around us were so imposing I felt dread. Hearing the waves smashing the beach all night started to make me cry. Quiet is not what you get when you go to Moreton island. The very dread you feel when crossing a busy road is the dread I feel sleeping with pounding waves. Hot was the sand too. We had to run across the dunes to the beach. Getting to the beach was a sprint across the dunes.

For the daytime, we swam and ate and Dad talked about the growing hope he had for me and for himself now he had changed jobs. Hope is what comes when you forget what has come already and look only to the future. This is what happens when you get over to Moreton. The sand takes away the past, and filters out the horrors of habiting with me.

There are times when I hate the way Dad gets frustrated with me but that is the way he is. He will start cursing around the camp site about what he has to go through to get anywhere then forgets we can all hear him.

Joking about Dad never ends well because he is stronger than me. One night I was so scared at night that I tried to pull down the tent and Dad grabbed me and held me down. He was really angry about what I couldn’t control. Dad was trying to get me to sleep but all I could hear were the pounding waves all night. Trust is something you earn. And Dad has earnt it but it still hurts to see him angry with me.

Finally, I managed to fall asleep at three in the morning. When I woke up Mum and Dad were awake getting ready to pack up the camp site. The night before had been too much for them. I had broken Dad’s trust and he had quit trying to get the family through another night.

This is the sacrifice of fighting autism. Fighting the senses that you can’t control. Fighting the body you can’t control. Fighting the society that wants you erased from view. Sacrifices are those things you go without to be decent to yourself. The sacrifice with autism is foregoing decent communication with others. This is something to fight against because decent humans must communicate. Fighting autism is not fighting who I am. Fighting my problems with communication are ways to help me.

That is what Dad sacrifices. He sacrifices his own writing to help me write. Going to Moreton truly tested Dad’s fabricated sense of having a career. The reality is working for the university is working for nothing. The reality is family take everything first and the boss gets Dad second. This is a sacrifice.

Instead of driving back through the interior Dad chose to follow the beach around the island. The beach is like a desert and the car can get up speed smoothly. We ended up at a club called the gutter bar at the bottom of the island. The frustration for me is we did not stay for chips. The frustration for the family was having to get me back to the ferry in time for me to return home.

Great dunes rose up above the car as we drove along the western end of the island. I was frightened by the dunes as they looked as if they were about to crash upon the car. The car was only a tiny floating piece of tin in a sandy desert that could engulf us at any time. The scene made me start crying. The car stopped. Dad thought I needed to go to the toilet. I ran away from the car screaming. The beach was flat and I ran as fast as I could go. Dad chased me then brought me back to this old steam boat that was rusting away. The boat was empty from a century of seas washing up against it. The frightening thing about the boat was the way it too had been engulfed by the island.

Rings of steel were frozen in the sand like giant tumbling weeds that were caught by the beach. Having to see the boat lying there made me want to get to the ferry as soon as possible. The old steamship was a distant past that gave the impression of dangerous waters between me and home.

Finally, I returned to the car to drive back to the ferry but we got bogged again on a back track behind the resort. Dad used the boards again and we freed the car. We continued on but another truck was bogged, blocking the track. Dad helped the family in the truck get out by tying a rope to our car and pulling the truck out. The cars were very different. We had a small car and the truck was twice the size. But it worked. Free to drive on, we then got bogged in the holes made by the truck.

Then a bus came by and the passengers helped by pushing the car from behind.

The next few kilometres of driving were really scary because Dad drove the car really fast. Run did the car, faster and faster as we descended down dunes and back up. The car drank of dirt and sand. You cant have a weak stomach in the island interior. In another moment we popped out of the darkness and onto the beach. The relief of the family to be on the safety of the beach was heard in cheers from everyone; even Dad. Then we drove down to the resort and got on the boat.

The girls and Dad stayed on the island and Mum and I returned home. Understand that the holiday was an adventure and I was the frightened child going into the unknown. This was my initiation into beach camping with Dad. Give me another chance to go again.