exploding beans

We are indebted to the Rottnest Society's latest newsletter for this memory from Nellie Marsden of the beautiful island in 1958.

"Married only three months to my husband John, we decided to go to Rottnest for Easter. I worked at Mac Robertson Miller Airlines, so we could fly to Rottnest for the princely sum of 8/6 (about 85c).

"We arrived about 6pm on Thursday evening and erected our small tent before dark. We were the only ones on the camping ground. That was soon to change: many others were on the Islander coming from the Barrack St jetty on a three-hour journey to arrive around 9.30pm. In the dark we heard much banging and yelling and by morning there was not an inch of ground without a tent on it.

"Fires were lit and tins of baked beans thrown in: they exploded and showered the area with cooked beans and embers. Soon it started to rain, it bucketed down and some low-lifes with pitchforks went around randomly puncturing tents. To plug the holes, people covered their tents with glossy magazines. As if this was not enough, if you were lucky to avoid the pitchfork, they had another prank up their sleeves.

"Coming back to your tent, you could find the tent poles removed and the tent spread out like a deflated balloon over whatever was inside.

"The quokkas, too, got into the act. They entered our tent in the night and got into our food supply, they even nibbled our toes.

"We'd had enough by that stage and decided never to stay overnight on Rottnest again - after that we became day trippers."