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I consider myself lucky in my job. I get to go plenty of places and meet plenty of like-minded off-roaders, the vast majority of whom are fantastic, down to earth, bush loving, fair dinkum folks. The type of people you’d be happy to share a few beverages with around a campfire swapping stories.
And then there are the bogans.
Now don’t get me wrong here, we all like to blow off steam when we’re off-road and let it all hang out once we’ve left the blacktop in the rear-view, but there are limits that most of us observe and respect. However there are a few people who just don’t get it. I’m talking about the mouth breathers who think it’s cool to tear up grassy campgrounds doing donuts in their stupidly lifted, holes in the muffler, cobbled together sh*tboxes with the sound system cranked to eleven at 3am – usually while other campers, often those with young families, try to get some shut eye.
Let me give you an example. Just last weekend I was up the beach with a couple of mates. It was the wee hours of the morning when a single-cab HiLux, complete with four idiots in the tray, roared up at full noise to our sleepy campsite, eighteen LED lightbars blaring and the stereo pumping out some ear-bleedingly craptacular techno “music” through the 4in splits in the front door panels. I stuck my head out of my swag just as old mate behind the wheel, apparently unconcerned he’d woken us up and put the fear of God into my poor dog, rudely asked me where Jonno was. Now, I have no idea who Jonno actually is, let alone where he was, and I politely (ish) informed the knuckle dragger in the `Lux of this. After drunkenly swearing at me, punctuated by giggles from the cast of Deliverance sitting in the tray, he backed out of our camp at full noise, kicking sand everywhere and leaving me to reflect on the fact that the penalty for punching someone in the mouth is too high in our society…
And don’t get me started on the oxygen thieves who riddle the bush with their rubbish. Sure, a lot of dumping is not done by four-wheel drivers, but too much of it is in places where a 2WD can’t get to, and you can bet your last dollar that we’re the ones who’ll cop the blame for it anyway.
And I guess that’s what I’m getting at. For too long the notion of being a reckless d*ckhead has been synonymous with being an off-road enthusiast. I can’t tell you the amount of people whom I tell I’m into four-wheel driving and they immediately assume I’m some sort of enviro-vandal tearing up our pristine bush.
The reality of the situation is that the huge majority of us are respectful and responsible people who are “real” environmentalists, yet we’re being sold out and represented to mainstream society by the minority of fools. I reckon it’s time for the silent majority to start pulling the loud minority up, before we’re all tarred with the same brush and we’re locked out of the bush forever.
Dex.
