Life in a caravan in the 90s

 

 Something I hadnt really written about before was living in a caravan park during my early years that included the beginning of living in Australia. It was an interesting part of life between 1987 and 2002. We went from Cairns to Cabarita Beach and then onto Hastings Point.

 

For a little while we lived in Cairns after flying from New Zealand as it wasn’t where all the Kiwis went unlike the Gold Coast. I had health issues and had to move south so ended up crossing the border into NSW to end up in Cabarita Beach, or Bogangar even though it goes by both names. We started off down in the caravan park that was on Cudgen Lakes known as Cabarita Gardens. Its no longer a caravan park, and for a little while it was a resort too before it closed down. It was owned by a local family who were developers and they lived in Cabarita too. I do remember there were several floods there, but we were safe with the caravan. It was there that I learnt TVs and water do not mix when I thought I was helping to clean by washing the TV down with a running hose. It started smoking at the power point and it did not work again.

 

I cant remember if we moved because the park kept on flooding or they were closing the caravan park side of things. We ended up moving to the nearest caravan park in Hastings Point. We stayed there until we would eventually move on into Tweed. We did move to several sites in the caravan park and ended up in the apartments above the office, which was pretty cool as you had great views of the caravan park. We had some good neighbours and that includes the ones who liked their alcohol. Several that would make home brew and there were times some of the bottles in the shed would explode. There was a mix of regulars who lived there and the holiday makers who arrived with the seasons who were regulars from down south, and the ones who came during school holidays. I should say that the residents do tend to know who you are and know your movements so keeping something secret wouldn’t be easy.

 

 

 The caravan park was also near the local river so I could go fishing whenever I liked, pump bait during low tide and even had the nearby beach where I could go walking and exploring. The biggest nearby town was a 40 min bus ride away and were restricted by the times you could get to Tweed Heads and back especially when own transport was tough. I did have my own thing going when I was old enough as I was washing cars for people who would become regulars like once a week or once a month. I would charge $5 per car for a wash. The extra money paid for the school excursions like to the EKKA or even school supplies. When school had fund raising for like my year 12 formal, I was using the residents to sell chocolates to them and the tourists as well. I did barter with several people who wanted a good deal. I think I came first even though I had an unfair advantage over the other people at school

 

The caravan did get cramped especially when my step dad had his kids over on the holidays for a week or a weekend. You end up with two adults and five kids in the caravan with an annex as well, so it was crowded and tough when you were basically on top of each other and didn’t always get along. I doubt we could have done that permanently. It was then I developed a dislike for Tuna Bake. We had meals made in bulk to save money as there wasnt much of that around at the time.

 

 We had to use the caravan park toilets and showers, so had to time it for when it wasn’t busy especially during school holidays. I even had one guy upset that I had ‘stolen’ his shower so he would splash water at me when I got out of the shower. The next day he followed me on his bike wanting to bash me, but I ignored him until he gave up and left me alone. The park did have a games room, but I never had money to play the games so mostly got to watch people play the games and there were people who were really good at them like Street Fighter and some of the others. I once used some washing money to play those games and I got into trouble as the money was missing and the people in the office are snitches. Didn’t do that again as money was tight

 

It was both sad and good when we moved away from Hastings Point into the house in 2002. No one knew what we were doing all the time as there were eyes everywhere. Also we were closer to everything as there isn’t much available employment wise when you don’t own a vehicle. Towards the end of our time there, I would ride a pushbike from Hastings Point to Kingscliff and I could do that in around a half hour. The whole area has now changed with lots of new developments going up.

 

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