Towels at dawn: Inside the battle for sunbeds, parking and poolside peace
"It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..."
Ah. The sunbed hogs.
She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast."
By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest.
I've been there, too.
For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon.
Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners.
Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend?
(That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.)
It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe.
Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches.
Resorts and hotels should follow suit.
Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool.
That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday.
You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter.
And you might even - finally - relax.
I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose.
"It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..."
Ah. The sunbed hogs.
She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast."
By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest.
I've been there, too.
For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon.
Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners.
Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend?
(That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.)
It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe.
Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches.
Resorts and hotels should follow suit.
Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool.
That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday.
You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter.
And you might even - finally - relax.
I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose.
"It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..."
Ah. The sunbed hogs.
She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast."
By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest.
I've been there, too.
For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon.
Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners.
Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend?
(That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.)
It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe.
Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches.
Resorts and hotels should follow suit.
Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool.
That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday.
You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter.
And you might even - finally - relax.
I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose.
"It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..."
Ah. The sunbed hogs.
She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast."
By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest.
I've been there, too.
For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon.
Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners.
Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend?
(That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.)
It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe.
Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches.
Resorts and hotels should follow suit.
Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool.
That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday.
You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter.
And you might even - finally - relax.
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West Australian
02-08-2025
- West Australian
Nat Locke: peer pressure made me go hot air ballooning in Turkey and I regret nothing
A month or so ago, before I went on my Euro adventure, I had a conversation with my parents where I basically promised that I wouldn't go hot air ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey. I made this decision off the back of some fairly awful hot air ballooning accidents, including one in Brazil where the balloon caught fire, and another in Turkey where the pilot was killed when the balloon crashed. The recency of these horrendous events seemed to be the universe sending me a sign. Then a colleague told me about his experience ballooning in Cappadocia. It was a special father-son bonding experience where halfway through, the pilot started yelling that he was going to drop the balloon down close to the ground and someone would have to jump out of the basket. Now, this is not as easy as it sounds, because the sides of the basket are quite high, so it requires someone with a reasonable degree of flexibility and strength to nail a ladder-less dismount without the balloon actually being on the ground. As the youngest and fittest passenger, my colleague was deemed the best candidate, and as the balloon got close to the ground, he was ordered to leap from the basket. Meanwhile, the balloon then ascended again, and everyone else got to have a lovely time, while my mate rolled around in the dirt, far from the landing or take-off zone. Perhaps the biggest injustice of all is that he didn't get a refund. So, after examining all of this evidence, I assured my parents that I would not partake. And yes, I know I'm too old to be making behavioural promises to my parents. Also, when I arrived in Cappadocia, I changed my mind completely, so you might argue that I'm also too old to be rebelling against my parents, but here we are. So what prompted this complete U-turn? What a very good question. Essentially, I was a victim of peer group pressure — and yes, I'm too old for that too — in that as soon as one other person in our tour group said she was going to do it, I jumped on board, figuratively and literally. That, and the assurance from our tour guide who ran me through the accreditation requirements for the balloon pilots and before I knew it I was handing my 230 euros over to a man with a briefcase. This was a tiny bit weird, given the currency of Turkey is the lira, but I was prepared to overlook it for the Instagram pics. The problem with breaking a promise to your parents is that when it actually comes time to do the thing, there's a little nagging voice in your head reminding you that you're tempting fate. The headlines start writing themselves in front of your eyes. You can even see which horrendous photo the news services will pluck from your social media to report your demise. And these are not the sort of thoughts to be having when you're standing in the pre-dawn darkness watching a bunch of hot air balloons being inflated. Mainly this is because it's not a particularly sophisticated process. The deflated balloons lie limply on the ground with the baskets on their sides, while enormous fans are used to blast air into them. It's noisy too, because a whole bunch of generators are required to power the fans. They can't blast the heat in until the balloons are mostly inflated, so you have a fair bit of time to contemplate your life choices. Once the balloon is up and ready, though, it's a mad flurry of activity to get everyone loaded in, as we scramble up the stepladder and throw our legs into the basket. There is a lot of yelling and a lot of bursts of heat and before you know it, you're up, up and away, floating across the magnificent valley as the sun peeps over the horizon. Oh, and 200 other balloons are doing the same thing. How do they not bump into one another? I have no idea, but we didn't come close. There are only four or five balloons launching from any one site, so maybe everyone has their patch? I don't know. All I know is I survived to tell the tale and it was an extraordinary experience. Truly magical. So, my conscience is mostly clear, and I'll take this as a sign to defy my parents on more occasions.
The Advertiser
28-07-2025
- The Advertiser
Towels at dawn: Inside the battle for sunbeds, parking and poolside peace
I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose. "It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..." Ah. The sunbed hogs. She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast." By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest. I've been there, too. For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon. Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners. Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend? (That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.) It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe. Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches. Resorts and hotels should follow suit. Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool. That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday. You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter. And you might even - finally - relax. I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose. "It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..." Ah. The sunbed hogs. She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast." By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest. I've been there, too. For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon. Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners. Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend? (That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.) It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe. Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches. Resorts and hotels should follow suit. Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool. That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday. You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter. And you might even - finally - relax. I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose. "It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..." Ah. The sunbed hogs. She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast." By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest. I've been there, too. For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon. Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners. Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend? (That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.) It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe. Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches. Resorts and hotels should follow suit. Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool. That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday. You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter. And you might even - finally - relax. I'm chatting to a friend's daughter about her just-completed Euro-summer - the sort of school-leavers' holiday that should feature nothing more stressful than which flavour gelato to choose. "It was amazing," she beams. "But the sunbed hogs ..." Ah. The sunbed hogs. She goes on: "People would literally set their alarms for dawn, creep down to the pool, and cover every single sunbed with a towel. Then they'd disappear - back to bed or off to breakfast." By the time she and her little girl gang sauntered down, ready for a swim? Every lounger bore a towel - yet half sat empty for hours. Chaos would erupt as guests started shifting towels and clashing with others over "ownership", she told me. Her group, to their credit, simply flopped poolside in quiet protest. I've been there, too. For years, I holidayed on Fiji's Castaway Island with four other families. We'd take over a neat row of beachside bures, each with its own set of deckchairs out front - at least in theory. More than once we'd emerge to find every chair and even the hammocks draped with strangers' towels, snorkels and inflatable dolphins ... but no people in sight. We'd set up around the ghostly placeholders, and sometimes the "owners" wouldn't appear until late afternoon. Sure, it's a first-world problem - but it's also a masterclass in holiday bad manners. Because where does it end? If it's okay to reserve a pool lounger at 6am and not sit on it until 3pm, is it okay to bag a whole row at the theatre with cardigans? To "own" a cafe table while you queue at the counter for 20 minutes? To leave a sweat towel on the gym's only squat rack while you take a work call? To stand in a parking space to save it for a friend? (That last one - the human car-spot-holder - is surely nature's most annoying invention.) It's undemocratic, it's irritating, and it kills the holiday vibe. Some places are already cracking down. Harbourside councils in Sydney outlawed reserving prime New Year's Eve vantage points with tents and tarps - at one point the foreshores looked like eerie, abandoned tent cities. Wollongong City Council even had to post signs that banned people from using cling wraps to "seal" picnic shelters so they could hog them. The prime minister himself once weighed in, frowning on the practice of using cabanas to reserve stretches of sand on Sydney beaches. Resorts and hotels should follow suit. Some of the more civilised have - introducing poolside booking apps that will release a lounger if you don't show within 30 minutes. Others have pool managers allocating spots on a first-come basis. The boldest of all feature signs warning that unattended belongings will be removed, thrown out or - my favourite - dumped in the middle of the pool. That's the sort of tough love we need. Because maybe, just maybe, if you're not waking at dawn to drape your towel over the best spot, you'll rediscover how to actually have a holiday. You might stumble upon a quiet beach around the corner. Or spend a lazy morning in the village, eating pastries and watching the world go by. Or, heaven forbid, just take the first sunbed available and realise it really doesn't matter. And you might even - finally - relax.
AU Financial Review
17-07-2025
- AU Financial Review
The must-book new restaurants to dine at this August
While Australians shelter from the winter cold and the occasional rain bomb, Europe is basking in the full glare of high summer. But if you've neglected to book a jaunt to the northern hemisphere this year, Australia's dining scene can at least take your tastebuds on a trip to the continent, courtesy of these Euro-centric openings.
