Kangaroo Valley Camp Fight (Part 3)

Binh Comes Prepared

Creeping back into my Sunday night demise, I shall begin from where we left off. From what I can gather, everyone had gathered around the camp fire back from the local pub and we weren’t doing much more than bonding. What surprised me is how Binh brought along seats to sit on as well as noodles, cups for tea and other assorted accessories.

Binh certainly came prepared even with a grill to cook fish and meat on but what I found a bit rude was that there wasn’t enough to go around for everyone. Binh was just being priggish with what belonged to him and deciding to jar his stiff resiliency a little I shared around freely the muffins that I had bought.

Strangers At The Campfire

The downfall of the night and the more remembered portion came when Tyler and I started cooking our muffins on the hotplate and from the darkness came a small group of people from a camp down in the forest part. Earlier in the day I could hear them being a little rowdy and I gathered that they were allured to our group by the pumping beats from Binh’s jeep. As they stood curiously around our group they asked us how we were doing and the rest of that idle chat.

From what we could all see, they looked ragged like they came from Macquarie Fields and to me it seemed like they were the type that would look around to start a fight. As one of them sat around our group and watched Binh throw some more fish on the hotplate they tried to make conversation with us. We weren’t being defiant to their being around us but a strange calm came over our group as they sat down, probably hoping they would scoot off and let us be. However, as they affiliated with Ned and chatted away it looked like the bad smell was around for a little while.

The rowdy little bunch of six told Keith that they had four canoes and as Keith knew I wanted to try out a canoe he informed the guy. “Who’s Tony around here” he shouted, “Who’s the guy that wants to ride in a canoe”. As I made myself known to him he told me how he would take me out in a paddle of the canoe when that morning arose but I wasn’t sure whether to thank him or just cast-off his drunkenness.

Nasty Remarks

The atmosphere started to turn a little nasty when they mentioned that they came over in search of some girls to root. From there they added to insulting words as one of the guys looked over towards Leroy and noted “Hey, you might get your root after all”. This to me was low behavior and interpreted, it meant that he saw Leroy as a bitch or a homosexual.

That pissed me off but I didn’t do nothing but just give each of them a cold stare, one that they did not see or so I feel. One of the guys who was sitting in our group also walked up to Abel who came with Binh. Looking at his food he asked what he was eating and what pissed me off is that he cuffed his ear with the torch in a slight aggressive way.

Abel is only young as is Binh’s other friend so it pissed me off that he would do that to someone younger but not to one of us at his age. Soon after this they left for the group a fair few meters up on the same stretch of grass. As they left Ned shared his thoughts of how they were idiots and that should have been the end of it.

Screams From The Other Camp

Binh turned his music up again as we continued to enjoy our little group outing at Kangaroo Valley but minutes later Keith said he heard screams and a ruckus coming from the area in which the guys headed. Binh turned down his car system so we could hear what was going on and until the system was down I was completely oblivious to what was happening.

Hearing a lady scream again the group conformed that we couldn’t sit back and just let this eventuate so we made the decision to head over there and try to calm things down. Our objective was to head over in the intimidation of a group to see if we can calm down what had become rowdy, moreso, the peacekeepers.

Departing in our group of about ten we made our way closer to the other camp where I could see one guy on the ground and someone else standing on top of him. Within meters of my actually being from the camp everything appeared to happen so fast as I had myself in the midst of breaking up a fray.

From what I could see there was a guy holding onto Leroy’s brother’s leg and as I bent down to help yank his foot free I was also telling the guy to take it easy. From what I have already noted, everything seemed to happen so fast and I was caught up in oblivion but piecing together stories and my own conclusions I now tell what happened in chronological detail.

How The Fight Started

When our group of ten headed over to sort the troublemakers out it was diffused into two groups, the infiltrators and the peacekeepers. Unbeknownst to myself, Leroy his brother and Shawn headed out in their group of three a couple of steps in front of everyone else. According to Shawn, Leroy walked up to one of the guys, asked “What’s the problem” and as he turned, with no further warning Leroy started pounding into him.

Ensuing from this fray was Leroy’s brother joining in as well as Shawn throwing a punch or two. All this happened in a matter of seconds and when I came into the fray was when one of the guys with the longer hair in a ponytail being on the ground at Leroy’s brother’s feet. Our little group of opened fists had struck doubt into the group of six and like our group, they had defenders with counter attacks and defenders who didn’t attack but just stood around.

With the unbelievable fury of Leroy and his brother who both used their martial arts expertise we forced the group to take a couple of steps back and say things like, “We’re outnumbered, let’s head back.” Keith told me later in the night that Leroy and his brother were easily revved up, after all, they kill rabbits and skin animals just for fun.

The group of six people were much older than us and the youngest there would have been around my height and a year older. Then the ages went up from around 28 years old to an older 40 so you could tell by this that the age difference was intensely different. Yet, in the opening stages we caused enough fear to have them doubting our strength and deciding to take a couple of steps back. They would have almost fled fully had it not been for one or two guys lingering, trying to start something.

Trying To Keep The Peace

This is where it all started to get ugly and this is also where I started making sense of the situation and who they were now after. From this point on the six of them came back and another fray was bound to ensue. Two of them headed back for Leroy and his brother and as we tried to hold the others back by telling them not to intervene we watched Leroy, his brother and the other two trade blows in which Leroy was only hit once in the head.

Through our peacekeeping efforts trying not to let the situation escalate Ned was punched in the face in which he didn’t feel an inch of hurt and then he was told to look some guy in the eyes who then head butted him. Again, Ned didn’t feel any pain or throbbing afterwards and these flying swings were coming from a guy that was supposed to be able to knock someone out if he got a good head butt out.

Binh was clear flung in the air once or twice from one of the guys he was trying to calm down but as for himself, he didn’t cop any punches. With the commotion now on full swing and our having diverted the family from any further trouble, we were now copping all the flack and taking all their shit. Myself, I was continually approached by two or three angry guys who continually wanted to punch someone up and as they were putting their fists up upon coming near me I didn’t want to fight back but rather just put my hands up to brush theirs off in defense.

The situation all around me was escalating as we were all now on the defense and they were on the prowl, looking for some revenge but never really receiving it. One of the guys who originally sat in our group walked up to me and didn’t push me or anything but huffed and puffed in my face telling me he was going to rip my head off.

As he raised his fist once or twice I raised my hands in defense and as my heart beat that little bit faster you could hear the anxiety and fear in my voice. None of them ever hit me as we were all walking backwards, listening to Leroy as he kept walking up and saying, “Walk away, just walk away”.