The Incident

So whilst roaming around rural New South Wales accommodation options have been limited. So I've been youth hostelling. I have to say the youth hostels in the cities are excellent. I've met some lovely people and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The rural hostels.. less so. If you have a love of haunted houses or perhaps recreating the life style of 1962 in a slightly backwards town then go for it. If not, steer clear. My stays in these rural backwaters have been interesting to say the least. 

I went to one place that was incredibly beautiful and out of the way. I am not going to say where it is as I don't think that is fair to the hostel owners. I arrived in the "town" (street) and walked to the out of the way hostel. I ended up sharing a room with a long term homeless person (not a problem). She also had quite severe mental health issues. Bit more of a problem. She told me all about the voices in her head, how everyone was against her and how the government was watching her via cameras. She also spent the night screaming. Waking up at 3am to someone shouting 'F*** off' repeatedly is not a way to wake up. I jammed ear plugs in and went back to sleep. The next time I woke up, she was standing at the end of my bed watching me. I didn't know if she was awake or not so I played dead. When I told the hostel owners this they told me 'not to engage with her'. 

Amongst some of the things she told me: 

- The government are watching her as she accidentally caused 'The White Australia Policy'. In her defence she she didn't intend it to be racist. 

- She's invented a form of exercise so good that they won't give her a licence to be a personal trainer as she'll solve the obesity crisis. 

- Everything she's ever written has been stolen and someone else has got the credit. This includes the Bourne Identity. 

I tried to get away from her but accidentally ended up playing board games with her. 

I thought I could put up with her but ended up staying away from the hostel for hours at a time. Which in a small, rural fishing village is quite hard. When you find yourself wondering whether you should walk around the lake in anti-clockwise direction as you've already walked around in the other way then you've run out of things to do. I went back to the hostel and was greeted by the mad woman saying 'They're having a town meeting about me, they want to take my wisdom teeth out and analyse my blood". At that point I checked out. There were no buses till the next morning so I spent the night awake in an armchair in the communal area waiting for her to come and kill me. As soon as morning came, I fled. Convinced she was coming after me. 

I still think she might.