GOOD SCUD TURNS BAD
I’LL be honest, I’d never heard the word ‘scud’ until that day in the Hawkesbury. But as day turned to night and thunder growled menacingly in the distance over the range, my confidence in ol’ storm boy Mason’s assertions of a clear night ahead dissipated. Scud my arse.
An hour later we were all huddled beneath the awning of the Drifter, where the boys had lined up their swags as far out of the bucketing rain as possible. And I’m talking end of days rain. Cats and dogs. Relentless torrents for a solid three hours.
I thought of my poor little tent, which
I’d placed strategically on the far side of the sprawling campground away from snoring swaggies, and as I eyed the sheets of water covering the ground I wondered what state I’d find it in when the rain eventually eased enough for me to get to it.
Finally, propped in my surprisingly dry fortress of pillows pulled in tight away from the tent’s sodden edges, I drifted into a fitful sleep to a deafening chorus of thunder and deluge as my baby rolled in my belly beneath my hands, seemingly in response to the fray. Yep, the comforts of the Drifter II – standing strong like a lighthouse yet housing no one – sounded pretty bloody good to me in that moment. Where do I sign?