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 Weekly Mailbag
Waving goodbye to
Christmas holidays
 Welcome back to another bumper fun-filled edition of the Grey Nomads Mailbag. We covered plenty of ground this week with our ‘Stars and Stripes’ specials provoking an enormous amount of written reaction. In the ‘Nomad’ over the past week we highlighted the impact of the recent decision to allow of concealed weapons into American national parks and also reported on moves to ban smoking in the same parks.
Your verdict … “Thank God we live and travel in Australia” was the overwhelming consensus. Steve from Sydney was typical.
“I love to get out bush and meeting fellow travellers is part of the appeal but, sadly, you are always going to come across the odd mongrel … even here,” he writes. “But to think that partying campers may be carrying a gun would be pretty scary and would certainly put me off asking them to keep the noise down.”
 You’re certainly not alone there, Steve. But thankfully the question is really something of a hypothetical because Australia is unlikely to follow the American model on guns in parks ... at least not until our great grandchildren are grey nomads themselves!
Smoking in parks was another hot topic. Clearly, the dangers of inadvertently sparking a bushfire was of uppermost concern. However, most of you - assuming that cigarette butts were disposed of responsibly and that no-one was directly affected by the smoke - felt that we should live and let live.
Hurray to that. Whether it be smoking, generator use, or using the van park laundry facilities, the secret to the wonderful grey nomad lifestyle is the ability to share and to understand others’ needs and points of view. Aren’t we a caring, sharing bunch?
Well, Fred certainly thinks so. Indeed, he is so impressed by our kindly natures, our jovial generosity and our expanding waistlines … no not our expanding waistlines … that he is recruiting grey nomads to become … well… Santa Clauses.
“We are the providers of Santa Claus to retailers around Australia – last year we provided almost 200 Santas to sit in thrones in stores from Cairns to Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland to Port Pirie, Karratha to Kingaroy,” he writes. “It occurred to me that the Grey Nomads would be a fantastic place to source Santas, particularly in some of the more remote regions where we struggle to get the right candidates.”
Thanks for the vote of confidence Fred. He says that most of the work is from 11am-2pm on Saturdays and Sundays for the four weekends leading up to Christmas. There is also some full- time work available over the season. Fred says costumes, training and a decent rate of pay are all provided.
“Many of the Santas come back to work for us year in, year out, as they enjoy the interaction with people and seeing the smiles on the children's faces,” he writes.
Aaaahhhh!
Email us here if you would like us to forward your details on to Fred, or keep an eye out on the employment section of this site over the next week as we will be posting more details.
Okay. It’s time to move from cuddly Santas to a much less lovable character … the cane toad! Booo! Hiss! Boo! Hiss!
Graham is enraged by what he calls the Federal Government’s decision to give up on the fight on toad eradication. But he is calling on grey nomads to take up the fight and to develop a travelling nomad ‘toad buster’ team to help Australia eradicate toads.
“On my previous trip around Australia clockwise between May and September 2009, I met no other travellers who were prepared to catch toads during their journey, and this attitude can and should be changed,” he writes in exasperation. “I believe the number of travellers offers a terrific base of ‘hunters’ to meet the challenge.”
He’s got a point, hasn’t he? Graham aims to seek support at state and local / regional government level, and from caravan park owner/managers throughout the country to establish a base infrastructure to support the ‘travelling toad hunters’ in this quest.
He also aims to embarrass the Federal Government into some form of tax credit as a bounty, if he can garner adequate support from the general public.
Good on yer, Graham for standing up and being prepared to do something about this menace. ‘Cause one thing’s for sure, these can toads aren’t going to go away unless we can ‘persuade’ them to do so. Drop us an email if you would like us to pass on your details to Graham as a potential can toad buster volunteer, or keep an eye out on this site for more news of Graham’s plans. What do you think? Are travelling nomad ‘toad buster’ teams a good idea? Email us here.
And that’s it for another mailbag. Plenty of food for thought this week. So rest up guys, this year’s Big Lap might not be as relaxing as you first thought. It seems that when you’re not ‘ho ho ho’ing’ at Christmas you could be out hunting for cane toads. Who says we can’t make a difference?
Until next week, happy trails!
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