We meet lots of nice people when we stay in the caravan parks. There’s always a good yarn to be had on the roads we’ve travelled and the places we’ve visited. Besides the fellow travellers, there’s also the ‘stay put’ people. These are almost exclusively Nomads, which I suppose is a contradiction, because they don’t actually go anywhere. Perhaps I’ll dub them the Grey Migrators. They go north for the winter – just like all the Victorians do when they head to Queensland, and stay in the one place for up to six months.

We met Stan in the Lighthouse Caravan Park in Exmouth, right next door to our site. He’s been camping right there each winter for 45 years. Now that’s a pretty good effort, since Exmouth only started to exist in the 60s. Stan has seen them come and go. I bet he can remember most of the neighbours he’s had on Site 72, including the permanents that were there for 18 years. He’s over 80, and on his own now. But he still comes to Exmouth from Perth every year. He says he’s trying to spend his childrens’ inheritance. Might take a while if he just stays in Exmouth and goes fishing every year. Unless of course he buys expensive bait. With just two weeks till he was due to head south again, he hadn’t caught any fish this year. That’s a pretty lean 4 months of fishing. He had a bit of a moan about having to buy meat from the supermarket at $25/kg. That wasn’t in his budget.

Stan keeps up with his reading. He chewed John’s ear for a good while over the latest gadgets he’d seen in the 4WD magazines. He’s been reading these mags for 25 years, and he reckons they just start to repeat the stories after a while. No kidding Sherlock. Try reading a mountain bike magazine.

Best of all was his car rego. And check out the ‘family’ sticker on his back window – it’s just him and his fishing rod! You’ve got to love him – Grumpy or not.