Dunsborough caravan park owner Herbie Schaal left to count the cost of graffiti after leavers week

A Dunsborough caravan park owner has been left with a $4000 bill to replace a sign out the front of his property which was completely covered in graffiti after leavers week. Dunsborough Lakes Caravan Park owner Herbie Schaal said he discovered the graffiti on Saturday night after the leavers week had concluded. “We were surprised to discover on Saturday night, obviously I don’t know when it went down . . . because we don’t get out (the front) when its the schoolies week,” he said. “It must have happened between Thursday and Saturday night, somebody’s gone out the front and basically graffitied and absolutely blocked out our side.” Mr Schaal said he had never experienced this in his close to three decades of running the park, and the majority of behaviour reports from the week had been positive. “We were absolutely blown away. For 29 years I’ve been doing schoolies and that’s the first time it’s ever happened to me, any graffiti,” he said. “It’s not just graffiti, this is a piece of art.” Mr Schaal estimated it would cost about $4000 to replace the roughly 4m by 2m sign which was visible from the roundabout connecting Caves, Commonage and Elmore roads. Accounts from police and volunteers midway through last week suggested this year’s leavers cohort were generally well-behaved, something Mr Schaal still agreed with. He said apart from the graffiti incident — which he didn’t believe was caused by schoolies staying in his site — the leavers had been very well-behaved. “The schoolies are absolutely impeccable, absolutely fantastic,” he said. “We never have a problem with any of our schoolies — the problem is we get not only schoolies from our park but all the Airbnb people get dropped off at our place, which there is hundreds of them and they line up in our carpark and carry on a bit.” Mr Schaal told the Times two ambulances had to be called to his accommodation over the week, but neither related to malicious behaviour. Separately, Dunsborough police have put a call out for information over an assault which occurred at the Four Seasons Caravan Park which happened about 3.30am on Friday last week. There was also brief concern for a leaver who went missing on Thursday morning, but she was quickly found once the call for help was put out.