Seaspray: what's in a name

OK - so an acceptable way to pick anything is surely to base it on whether you like the name of it or not. It's how I would pick a horse in a race or a favourite child in an anonymous playgroup. So why not apply it to how we pick towns to visit?

And the theory is working. In the last week - we've picked out Tilba, Eden and Mallacoota.
So when I picked Seaspray - I was sure it would be a winner.

Winner it is.
We drove into this quaint little seaside village at about 4pm. And the only person we saw was a woman who was taking a cake on a plate to her neighbour.

The van park is on one side of the sand dunes and Ninety Mile beach is on the other side facing itself at south east, but more east and being ninety miles of it - there isn't a single headland or curve to stop the onshore winds.
The beach is impossible for swimming with huge troughs and rips within rips, but makes for great fishing and a great stroll.

There's beautiful trees and the whole town is completely quiet. Being the Monday of a Victorian state long weekend - the park had been packed with people until the morning. But there are literally 3 other vans here now and one person at a permanent site.
It's still.
Nothing is moving and it smells of it's namesake - seaspray.

When it's night time, I'm generally used to some sort of background noise, like cars or neighbours having a barney and various intrusive lights coming into my bedroom windows - all the more aparent since living in van morrison.

But not here.

Here there isn't a single street light. And the background noise is the ocean waves breaking which is nice and soothing.
But everything else is very still. There isn't even a dog barking.

I found this somewhat un-nerving, as the silence means that any tiny noise is totally amplified and absolutely foreign - telling my brain that the noise should not be there.

And at about 2am in the morning Seaspray is no longer a winner.
It's gone from peaceful seaside loveliness to frickin terrifying.

I wake up to some windy distrubance and what appears to be the sound of someone walking circles round the van in flip flops. I am listing really carefully and making not a single sound so that I can be hearing exactly what is going on.

Then there's a BANG.

A massive BANG to the back of Van Morrison, right next to where our bed is.
I'm thinking that if that flip-flop psycho making some sort of move and I'm gunna stay real still so they think no one is in the van.
And right on queue, husband man starts blithering and grumbling at the top of his best sleep voice 'did you hear that?'.

Yes, that's what he asked.

Not only does he blow my pretend-we're-not-here cover and alert the banging psycho outside, he asking me if I heard a really loud freekin BANG.
Surely he knows that if it woke him up - old sleep through anything man - then obviously I would be awake and would have heard a BANG. We're talking about a man that only wakes up to his alarm when I stick my finger in his rib cause it's woken me up.

So I fret about and complain about being scared and he declares it's only the wind.

Wind.
Wind?
What sort of wind bangs things like that.
Not any sort of nature type wind, only the wind behind someone's giant big machetti I would think.

I whisper to him about the flip-flop person who is now carrying a machetti.
He goes back to sleep and not only do I have to deal with the psycho in flip-flops, but also come to terms that husband man is clearly not going to get on out there and have a knife fight for me.

So I continue to lay very still and listen, the easterly wind picks up a mighty pace and shakes old Morrie around a bit. It's whistling away (pretty rude really when there's a psycho on the loose) and it's gaining moment, whipping at the sides of the van.

We get another BANG and husband man wakes again. And this time he stays awake with me for the next hour and a half cause I'm dribbling crap to him about every psycho story i've ever heard and i'm sneaking a peak out into the pitch black outside from time to time just to keep my imagination well fueled.

There are several more bangs - which husband man goes outside to investigate - turns out it's the back tin window cover moving with the wind against the back of the van.
After a while I realise that the flip-flop noise is actually the sound of Morrie's canvas pop top material crinkling against itself in the wind.
And while I realise that it's all 'wind' causing this disturbance and realise that husband man is right, I don't quite believe it for some time because my brain is still telling me that it's far too convenient a noise distraction for any would be killers. I continue making exit strategies in my head and how to quickly get to the knife drawer.

Eventually I had somehow drifted back off to sleep. And at 6am I am awake and alive. There's no noise. You could hear pins drop. 
The wind has gone and it's completely silent again. We go to the beach to try catch some fish and watch the sun come up.

I conclude that Seaspray is not for anyone with an overly active imagination based on watching far too many small town horror movies - namely Wolf Creek.

We've got one more night here and I am hoping for less easterly wind.