No water or bucket for dishwashing. I will sneak down to the beach after dark. No clean undies. I won’t wear any. This trip to Tasmania is my first time travelling solo. My beautiful partner of 38 years died suddenly and unexpectedly 16 months ago. Coronary disease. His heart broke. So did mine. Greg loved to camp. He would spend days creating the perfect site with ropes and tarps and tables and rugs and stuff. Lots of stuff. It seems I am not as resourceful. But the beach, the birds and the cool shade under the trees were so enticing. Warrior widow, I am. I proudly set up camp, minimal as it was.

Then I met my neighbour. He introduced himself. I offered him a cigarette. That’s the neighbourly thing to do, right? I can’t judge him for having no teeth and being covered in really bad tattoos. Right? Wrong. He was homeless and had been camping for six weeks, after being evicted from his squat. His landlady had figured out how to do that legally from a condemned house. One strike against women. He had left his partner. Couldn’t handle it. Two strikes against women.

Jules De Cinque: "Warrior widow, I am. I proudly set up camp, minimal as it was." Very quickly my suspicions were confirmed. Ice addict. Ex, he claimed. But then he went on to tell me he was on bail for sexual assault. No conditions. The young woman, a teenager, had come forward after six months to accuse him of assault. His story was that he refused to supply her with ice and her allegation was an act of revenge. The long period before her report to police was evidence of its spurious nature. And there was me thinking this time lag made her testimony more likely. Three strikes against women. Then he told me about his friend who was also on a charge of sexual assault. According to the girl, the condom broke during the business and she asked him to stop. But he was nearly there, you know where, so he ignored her and continued on. A few days later she accused him of rape to assuage a jealous boyfriend. Four strikes against women. At this point I murmured something sympathetic and said I wanted to read. My neighbour was reading Underbelly.

He eventually took the hint and wandered back to his site. In any case, he was waiting for a friend to deliver some weed. He had invited me to share it with him. I very, very politely declined. So this man knew I was on my own and my mobile was nearly flat. We were in the middle of Tasmanian nowhere. Awesome. I had 7 per cent left on my phone, enough to text friends for reassurance. Am I over-reacting? One friend advised not to engage. Oops. Years as a VCAL teacher preparing young people for work was about to become useful. I did a risk assessment. These assessments are called SAM audits and are usually applied to the workplace to manage health and safety. Lone woman in an isolated bush camp with no mobile phone and in the company of a potentially dangerous man seemed equally applicable. There are three THINKSAFE steps. Hence the acronym.

Spot the hazard: A hazard is anything that could harm you or anyone else. Not difficult. Drug-f---ed man on bail for sexual assault charges could be defined as a hazard, I think. Assess the risk: This involves mapping the likelihood of harm against the consequence of the harm. I figured it was an unlikely risk of harm. However the consequences could be catastrophic. I could see the headline: "Woman's body found in Tasman Sea." I therefore assessed the risk as high. Make the changes: This works as pyramid of strategies, from least effective to most: Use PPE (Personal Protective Equipment): My friend suggested that if I had anything that could hurt him, keep it nearby. I had a hammer (for tent pegs, in case you are wondering). “She looked like she had been bashed by a hammer or something,” reported John Silver, fisherman, who found the body. I decided against PPE.

Instruction: This requires that a person learns the safest way to do things. The friend I texted suggested that I make myself as unappealing to my neighbour as possible. “Snort, fart and blow your nose a lot.” I assume my snoring would also contribute to this strategy. She also recommended that I stay sober and alert. Oops.

Safeguards: Machinery for example can be modified to incorporate safeguards. In this case a chastity belt might have been an appropriate safeguard but I didn’t have one handy. I would have considered a lead-lined tent but they are very awkward to erect and heavy to haul.

Isolation: Who would have thought there would come a time when I would have sympathy for Trump’s policies? I would have been quite happy to fund the building of a wall between me and my neighbour but my mobile was flat so I couldn’t tweet the twit.

Substitution: I could have moved campsites and substituted neighbours but there was no guarantee of increased safety. There were many men about who had been drinking all day, making their kids cry and displaying a woeful taste in tattoos. Besides, moving may have been construed by my friendly neighbour as inflammatory. It would have been the fifth strike against women.

Elimination: The most effective strategy and the easiest to achieve. Tomorrow I bail. I could smell his weed had arrived so he will be OK tonight, but what happens when that runs out? During the night l dreamt that Greg was sitting on the end of my bed. I couldn’t see his face. He was looking towards the door of the tent. But I saw his hand resting on his knee. His left hand, with his wedding ring. He was wearing a jacket I recognised. My favourite.

I was gone before my neighbour woke the next morning. By the time I left the site, dust flying behind me, I was angry. This warrior widow had to modify her behaviour to accommodate the behaviour of a man. Sound familiar? Jules De Cinque is a Melbourne educator and a feminist.