Be they bathers, swimmers, togs, cossies or whatever else swimwear is called in your part of Oz, there’s no point in buying flash bathing costumes for caravanning. One day you’ll be flouncing about in a nice swimming pool under swaying palms and an ornamental waterfall and the next you’ll be scrambling across muddy rocks to throw yourself under a real waterfall. Then there are ocean swims, farm dams with oozy mud and cow pats, clear mountain streams, mud between your toes in the Murray and boiling hot artesian bores.

As much as I care for our bathers and rinse out the chlorine and the mud after each aquatic adventure I’m convinced that one day somewhere, in the busiest of places they’re just going to completely shred and fall in a heap around my ankles.