It’s 8 pm. A calm night. It’s winter still, so not many people around. Just a few campers scattered thinly across the grounds.

I feel safe. I feel happy. I am snuggled up in my sleeping bag. Tired after a full day of walking I’m drifting away. Listening to the wind ruffle the trees and the distant sound of waves crashing. Peaceful.

I awake to the sound something hustling around my feet. Fuck. It sounds biggish. I sit up and turn on my flashlight. I realise I fucked up. I should know better. I guess I didn’t believe an unopened pack of rice crackers would cause this. In front of me is a wombat. A hungry wombat. And he’s eating crackers. My startled awakening does not seem to bother him one bit. I realise he’s ripped a big hole in the side of my tent. A wombat sized hole.

Alright. So what does one do when there’s a wombat in your tent? I figured removing the crackers is a good start. So I do that. Removing them from the tent will make my new found friend go away, right? Not so. This wombat is clearly comfortable and out for more snacks. There are none, but he is persistent.

Gently putting my hands on the wombat I steer him towards the opening. Gently applying pressure on his (or hers. The wombat was a messy eater so I’m going with ‘it’s a him’) butt I manage to persuade him out of the tent.

But wombats are stubborn (as I quickly learnt) and a tent with a wombat sized hole is a tent fit for a wombat. Time and time again he enters. Time and time again I persuade him to leave. Eventually, I give up. I need sleep. And it’s a wombat, not exactly known as human slaying beast.

Just after midnight I wake up again. I gently stretch my arm out, until it lands on a wiry-haired wombats back. He was there. Standing next to me as I slept. And one final time I maneuver him out of the tent.

I wake up and the sun is shining. A mild winters day, just perfect for walking. A few low hanging clouds hug the hills around me. I try to find my tent repair kit but realise I have left it at home. It’s on a shelf in my laundry, absolutely no good to me or anyone else. I have one night left of my stay and decide that without the insanely temptatious rice crackers, surely I will be left alone. So off I go, a day of walking awaits.

I get back late afternoon. I check my tent to see what creature might have taken it over, made it it’s home. And it appears untouched and uninhabited.

Night time comes and the air cools down quickly. As it gets dark I decide to again have an early night and crawl into the tent. Sans rice crackers.

But there was not to be peace. But this time he’s not alone and they’re organised. Finding the wombat sized hole in my tent too small to fit what is now a team of three wombats, they quickly make it bigger. Behind them is a possum. A big possum. And he is standing on his hind legs. Standing behind his army of wombats. He is clearly the mastermind behind this attack. He is a General. A possum General. General Possum.

I decide I need to capture this moment. A moment of sheer disbelief for me. I am being overrun, overrun by wombats. As I stop one of them from entering the tent, two manage to squeeze themselves in. And it’s on. The two wombat’s start sniffing the patch where there was once rice crackers. So I do what I did the night before. But this time it’s more complicated. I gently steer wombat 1 towards the main tent opening. Over a minute or two I manage to persuade him to leave. Wombat 2 is just standing there. Waiting. And I repeat what is now a familiar process.

But being commandeered by what I can only imagine is a 5-star General genius, the wombats persist. Although less coordinated than the original wave of wombats, they one by one try and squeeze themselves into the tent. It takes another hour of effort and they finally give up. They are undoubtedly called to another theatre of snacking, likely scouted by their allies the possums. I imagine they use Rosella’s as air cover, scouting the terrain below as they spread their colour wings out.

Make no mistake about it, they might have lost the battle but I’m utterly convinced they will win the war. The war on snacks.

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