For those who came in late, let me set the scene.

It was a big family show. My parents were visiting from the Gold Coast. It was my mother’s birthday. There was a highly anticipated school production in the wings featuring my niece.

And I was playing the multiple roles of selfish husband, father, son and uncle in a performance which saw me disappearing to Flat Rock, near Ballina, to go camping with my mates instead.

Then shortly after we arrived, one of the camping ensemble, Johnny, was swept by a wave over an unforgiving coastal landscape after getting his leg rope snagged on a rock – forgoing much of his skin.

Fortunately the injuries, while significant, did not require any major rewriting of the script which basically involved a group of old college friends shirking their family responsibilities and bludging in the warm sunshine.

When confronted with his perilous pounding, I first thought a helicopter medical evacuation team might be making a surprise cameo, but much to the resilience of our man in the spotlight, the show went on with far less fuss.

A quick dash into Ballina for some Betadine – and some medicinal beers while we were there – proved to be just what the doctor ordered.

Soon, as we breathed the salt air and listened to the whip birds, relaxation washed over us like a gentle wave – nothing at all like the marauding actual wave of the curtain raiser.

It was not the first time this cast of campers had played together.

Since we were late teenagers there have been semi-regular trips away to exotic locales, which in the early years were dictated by how far Vic’s orange Renault piled high with surf craft could get us.

In fair Straddie, Yamba, Byron, Broken Head, Hat Head, Airlie Beach and others we have laid our scenes. During these expeditions, some things have changed and some things have remained the same.

For example, anticipating such events like excited puppies while maintaining an air on the homefront (first with our mothers and later with our girlfriends and wives), that they were somebody else’s idea and we didn’t really want to go – has been an familiar trait right the way through.

Also, painful injuries have been a common theme.

I hark back to North Stradbroke circa 1985, when you could camp on Point-Lookout near the Surf Club, and recall a classic when-good-times-turn-bad moment involving snorkels and an ocean with a very persuasive mind of its own.

Having established our camp, which as excitable students involved dumping all our stuff on the ground in a big pile to sort out later when hopefully the tent pegs we left on the mainland would magically appear, we decided it was time to cool off down in the cove.

As a group of us snorkeled, admiring the pretty fish and graceful rays, we paid not nearly enough attention to the way the watery contents of the narrow passage heaved momentarily ocean ward.

Had we done so we would have been prepared for what came next, which was an enormous wall of whitewash accelerating towards us, showing no sign of mercy.

My father would tell me stories about how the convicts were keel-hauled beneath barnacle-encrusted timber hulks for punishment and, on that sunny Stradbroke afternoon, I gained a first-hand appreciation of what they might have gone through.

We were pounded against the razor-like protrusions of the craggy foreshore and held under until the exact second when the penultimate life-preserving oxygen molecules were absorbed from our panicked bodies.

We emerged bloodied and sore. I still carry the physical and emotional scars.

So, there’s nothing new in all of that. One thing that has changed, however, is the camping cuisine. At one time it was Weet Bix, sausages and baked beans garnished liberally with sand that sustained us.

Most recently the fare was decidedly more flamboyant. We delighted in such dishes as green curry fish with kaffir lime, camp-oven roasted beef with all the trimmings; fresh salad rolls and hearty breakfasts of bacon, eggs and hash browns washed down with espresso coffee.

I would have thought we were all going soft had I not looked at Johnny and noticed that despite his tender wounds, I had not heard him complain once. Then I had to quickly turn away because it was ruining my appetite.

I returned home very content and hardly the villain after all. My son, for example, was so happy to see me he jumped up and down in the driveway clapping his hands.

I humbly received the applause which I felt I didn’t deserve. In my acceptance speech, I thanked my family without which none of this would have been possible.