28. A Good - Bad Night at the Giants' Playground

The Chequers had a Saturday night off - a rare occurrence - a last minute cancellation - and it was decided we’d have a braai (barbecue) at the ‘Giant’s Playground’ near Hatfield, a suburb on the South East of Salisbury.     

The 'Giants' Playground' is a surreal place. Countless centuries of rain and wind have eroded the earth around huge massive rocks leaving them balanced on top of each other; seemingly defying the law of gravity.    

Legend had it that the series of the so-called 'balancing rocks' was the work of giants hence the name ‘The Giant’s Playground’.

A crowd of us armed with curls of boerewors sausages ...

...steaks...

... and a trunk load of booze....

... turned off the Hatfield road and followed a dirt track through the bush to the ‘Giant’s Playground’. Once there we scavenged around for wood, made a huge fire and proceeded to cook – burn – the steaks and sausages. 

I don’t recall how the drink contest came about. Maybe I challenged Hodge or he challenged me, but I remember standing opposite Hodge in the centre of a ring of mates each holding half litre bottles of gin to our lips and with a chorus of, “down, down, down, down....”, ringing in our ears, we did just that – downed the half litre of gin in one go without stopping for breath.

The effect on us was as bizarre as our surroundings - especially Hodge. Hodge became convinced that he was a moth and as moths were attracted to light he insisted on throwing himself on the  fire. After the third or fourth attempt he had to be physically restrained with a tow rope.

Surprisingly I remained unaffected by the consumption of a half litre of gin...well, for at least five minutes that is and then I simply blacked out. Most of what happened that night at the Giant’s Playground I learnt later. 

I vaguely remember Lea dragging me out of the combi and into the house in the early hours of the Sunday morning urging me to be quite and not to wake the folks. I stumbled into our bedroom where Mum always left glasses of milk by our beds. I grabbed the glass and down the milk...as soon as it hit my stomach up it came with the velocity and force of those pump sprays you use to paint garden fences...half the bedroom including curtains ended up with a liberal coating of undigested milk...but I was beyond caring and flopped into bed. How I didn't suffer from alcohol poisoning I’ll never know. Maybe I did and didn't realize it.

It'd be unfair to single out just me and Hodge, there were many others that night. I remember hearing that a friend of ours, Stu Nicols, passed out close to the fire and remained there in a semi comatose state for most of the night. Half his face - the side closest to the flames - got... well... barbecued and Stu ended up with a ferocious tan.

Another party goer, Andy-somebody-or-other, returning home in the early hours of Sunday morning, discovered his front door key no longer fitted the lock to his parents' house. Inebriated Andy proceeded to try and smash it open.  Unfortunately it wasn't his parents’ front door...the house he was trying to force his way into wasn't even in the same street as his parent’s house. The police were called and hapless Andy-somebody-or-other spent most of Sunday in the nick.