So Easter is over.

Yesterday SB and I decided that we wanted to go to for a bit of a hike.

Cunningham’s Gap is divided in half by a road. On one side is Mount Mitchell, which we hiked last year during the Queen’s Birthday break, so this year we decided to do some of the walks on the other side of the road.

We took the hour and a half long drive down from Brisbane and when we got there SB and I needed to use the bathroom. The bathrooms at Cunningham’s Gap are your typical nature reserve bathrooms. They are tiny, built from wood and are really close to each other. Any excrement goes right into a waste tank under the toilets. I think this is then carted away at some stage.

So I went to the men’s bathroom and SB went to the ladies room. They are diagonally situated next to each other, probably so that all the waste can just flow right into the tank tank below. I finished first and stepped out to wash my hands when I heard a scream from the ladies room. Thinking that SB probably saw a spider or some creepy crawly I asked her what was wrong, and she ran out of the bathroom. “I saw a man in the toilet” she said.

My first thought was that there was a man peeping at her in the bathroom, which freaked me out. I was prepared for a fight at this stage and I asked her “What do you mean you saw a man in the toilet?!” And she said she saw a man literally INSIDE the toilet as in the toilet bowl. For those of you who haven’t seen the park toilets, refer to the image above. That is a park toilet. My next thought was “How the fuck did he get in there?”

Now, I’m not a religious or superstitious man, but I’ve had my fair share of rather scary, downright creepy supernatural encounters during my time in the army and before. My first illogical assumption was that it was some kind of ghost. I mean, surely no man would sit and wait in a latrine so that people can poo and pee all over them. It just didn’t make sense. How and why would someone do that?

I went into the bathroom and took a look around. No poo covered man hiding behind the door. I looked into the toilet bowl and it was pretty dark. Nobody in there either. Maybe he heard us. I wasn’t prepared to fight with whatever was down there. Not especially if he was covered in poo. Not even if I had a stick. Maybe a cricket bat. Or a golf club. Something like that.

So I asked SB what she saw. She said she was lining the toilet seat with toilet paper when she saw something move at the bottom of the tank. During this time she could hear me peeing next door, and at first she thought it was some kind of animal. When I stopped peeing she saw something move again. This time it was the face of a man. A bald(ing) man and she saw half his face and an eye.

While we were discussing this, another group of hikers came along. One girl with two guys. The girl was about to go into the bathroom, but SB whispered to her “excuse me” and she whispered back “yes?”. If the situation wasn’t so freaky it would actually have been pretty funny. “I saw somebody in the toilet bowl” SB said to the girl. The girl stopped for awhile. I could see she was trying to process this information. “what?” she replied. And so I had to explain it to her in some detail, and she wisely decided not to go to the bathroom.

The girl and her companions left and we decided to find the next closest bathroom and think about what to do next. We drove about 15 minutes down the road. I was still trying to piece it all together in my mind, and surprisingly, SB didn’t seem as freaked out as me. I think this was because I knew if there was a confrontation I’d be fighting with a man covered in poo.

We stopped at one of the driver revivers down the road and had a cup of coffee, easter eggs and used their bathroom. Of course, I checked their bathroom first to make sure nobody was hiding in the toilet bowl.

After talking over the situation for abit, I decided that there was nothing we could do but go back and investigate further and drove back to revisit the toilet. When we got back I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I didn’t have any weapons in the car except for my tiny swiss army knife keychain, which is also a tiny torch light. So I picked up a stick. As long a stick as I could find at the carpark.

I went back into the bathroom, half expecting to find a head poking out of the toilet bowl. A bald head covered in poo. In my mind, I would then hit the said head like a whack-a-mole. I was pretty sure I’d be able to split his head apart provided it wasn’t a ghost.

So I told SB to wait a safe distance away with my phone and I crept into the bathroom with my tiny swiss army torch light and the stick. No head sticking out from the toilet bowl. So I crept over to the toilet bowl and peered in thinking: “fuck I hope I don’t get grabbed”. Nothing inside. So I decided (probably stupidly) to throw the stick in to see if it startled anyone. In went the stick with a splat and I heard something move around inside the tank. “holy shit there’s someone in there!” I thought as I retreated, now unarmed. I told SB about this and we decided it was time to get some backup.

At the carpark was another couple. An American fellow with his Australian wife and their cute little daughter. I explained the situation to them and the American guy decided we should check it out together. I didn’t mention that the guy in the toilet bowl now had a rather large stick in his possession.

So this time the both of us crept into the bathroom. This time he was holding my torch light. He was pretty brave and put his arm in to the toilet bowl to shine the light in. I was reluctant to do this also because the swiss army knife keychain is attached to my house keys. If they fell in I’d have to join the guy in the toilet bowl. We looked around but there was nothing in the toilet bowl. It didn’t look like there was space for anyone to hide in there anyway.

Now that there were two of us, it was safe to investigate the back of the bathroom. The bathrooms are situated on a slope, just off the walking trail. The tank is at the bottom of this slope and is surrounded by vegetation. Perfect terrain for a man covered in excrement to conceal himself in. We crept round the back of the bathroom and checked the gate. It was locked. A brand new lock even. We saw the tank. It appeared to have been untampered with. There didn’t seem any way for anyone to get in to it.

At this stage, I was pretty freaked out. A ghost? Maybe a ghost that likes 2 girls 1 cup. You’d have to be pretty fucked up / unfortunate to end up as that kind of ghost. The American guy was satisfied that there was nothing there. Maybe SB saw an animal in the toilet bowl, or maybe it was a reflection. SB can be a little confused at times, but I was sure there was no mistaking a human face, let alone eyes.

The two of us then went back up to the bathroom and we heard noises coming from inside. This alarmed the American guy greatly and I could see him getting quite worried. He motioned for me to open the door. I stood there for awhile. For quite a long time thinking what to do. I was preparing myself to do battle with a very dirty adversary. I decided that instead of opening the door and giving the guy a kick in the guts, I’d climb the side wall and look in first. Just as I was about to do this, an old lady came out of the bathroom. American guy shrugged and we decided that we reached a conclusion with this adventure.

SB andI decided to leave it at that and decided to go somewhere else to spend the rest of the day, leaving whatever it was to sit in the toilet bowl.

Today I met a friend. I said to him. “You’ll never guess what happened to me yesterday. It’s something so fucked up you’ll never guess. I went to Cunningham’s Gap for a walk and when my wife was in the bathroom” and he said “someone was peeping at her from inside the toilet?” this really surprised me. “How the hell did you know that?” I almost thought for a moment there that he was the one in the toilet bowl, except that SB said the guy in the toilet bowl didn’t have a beard. Apparently people have been known to hide in that toilet, waiting for women to poo on them.

That was a surprisingly satisfactory answer, and we went to have coffee.

At Cunningham’s Gap the bald man was still sitting in the toilet bowl. Waiting.