Rampaging kids!

Schoolies!

Are they the modern Australian equivalent of Vikings (scrofulous Vikings at that), or just kids having largely harmless fun before they start working for The Man?
And the parents are just as bad! ‘Booze-supplying parents irk police’, was one recent headline.
In fact, police are “dismayed”…“fearing”…“frustrated”…and “worried”.
(Stop me now – I’m starting to sound like Not The West [which is gone but not forgotten].)
Anyway – a Rotto Bloggo reader has written to share his schoolie sojourn on the island of nearly a quarter of a century ago.
This man is now a highly respectable, Rivers-wearing, P&C-involved, tea-drinking public servant and the head of a nuclear family unit.
The moral of the story? Plus ca change…

‘With 'schoolies week' now under way I thought would reminisce about my own end-of-school trip to Rottnest at the end of Year 12, which in my case was in 1982.

‘Today, kids who've just completed school can't get onto the island without booked accommodation. There are activities to keep everyone occupied, and extra police are sent over to keep an eye on things.

‘In 1982, the procedure was as follows:

‘1. Pack. One t-shirt, one pair shorts, boardies, beach towel.

‘2. Ask father to drive you to the East Street Jetty. Spend car trip evading questions like "so where will you be staying over there?"

‘3. Arrive at East Street Jetty and buy ferry ticket. Usually 10 minutes before ferry due to depart. Throw bag into luggage cage to leave both hands free for drinking on the ferry (one hand for the middy, the other to hang on if it gets rough).

‘4. Board ferry. Track down schoolmates. Work out where the hell we're gonna stay over there. Realise nobody's got anywhere to stay.

‘5. Travel to Rottnest.

‘6. Disembark. Collect luggage.

‘7. Go to pub.

‘8. Get drunk.

‘9. Hear that a guy from school's got a mate who's got a mate who's got a girlfriend who's cousin's got a bungalow with space in the sleepout. On the floor.

'10. Depart pub at closing time, make way (as fairly disparate group) to aforementioned bungalow. Collapse on floor.

'11. Wake up next morning to find we crashed out in the wrong bungalow.'

Pic is of the condom machine in the toilet at the pub, which was out of order last time Rotto Bloggo checked it out. Do you think it would've been fixed for Schoolies?