Following a ten day survival experience that was compulsory in Year 9, my friends and I became keen hikers and I continued this hobby during my university years. Out of Sydney and Melbourne where I studied and Canberra where Maggie and her like-minded friends were based, we would periodically put trips together and set off into the nearest National Park for a weekend away. We trekked along rivers and streams, beside pine plantations and through eucalypt forests. We slept on thin rubber mattresses in two-man tents, dismissing blow-up mattresses, however thin, as for softies. Car camping, with eskies, camp chairs and camping stoves were well beneath our contempt. That wasn’t proper camping at all.
I’m not sure how it happened, but as we left our university years behind us, many of us little by little gravitated towards the car camping that we had previously viewed so contemptuously. Steve and I found a wonderful spot in a small National Park overlooking the sea, unmarked from the road and so not too populated, the campsites set in magnificent mottled gum bushland with the convenience of a couple of pit toilets. It was nice to have a bottle of cold wine, and why tramp across the countryside for hours on end when you can stay put in a lovely spot. If you stay put, you may as well store that wine in an esky and then you can have cold milk and yoghurt for breakfast, and during the day, fruit and other perishables such as chocolate as well. A blow-up mattress is more comfortable than a rubber one, a pillow or two makes all the difference, and why sit on the ground when you can lounge in a canvas chair with your feet on the esky? For that matter, a hammock is just the thing when you have a good book or magazine to read. It’s nice to have a few options for relaxing in the horizontal position.
Pre bébés, we had indulgent weekends in our little piece of paradise. Our usual camping site was a couple of hundred metres along a scenic path from the car park and pit toilets, a myriad shades of green all around, except for glimpses of the sea a further hundred metres down the path. We had to make a few trips with all our things, but it was worth it. Now four years since we had last visited, the weather was forecast to be around 29 degrees, and I thought it would be nice to introduce the girls to camping. We had read a few stories together on the subject and I knew they would love sleeping in a tent. We loaded the car up with the inordinate amount of stuff we needed, including a small four-man tent borrowed from Maggie and Peter, and set off at around noon on Saturday. Given that it was a long-weekend we thought we would stay until Monday, weather permitting.
To our delight, our usual camping site was vacant. The girls shuttled back and forwards between the car and the camping site between our faster laps, and after about four trips each, including canvas chairs for us and child-sized ones for the girls, the car was empty. Lara and Rhea could hardly contain their excitement when the tent went up. It was just like Marcel’s trip to the country in their Popi magazines. They pulled all the mattresses and unzipped sleeping bags in the tent and rolled around inside.
When everything was in place we all went for a swim. The water was refreshing but not too cold, and Rhea was shrieking with delight as the foam fizzed around her legs. Lara loved digging the sand, and both of them enjoyed being chased up and down the beach and around in circles. They dismantled a sun shelter that some older boys had made out of sticks and leaves, which the boys’ father assured us that they wouldn’t mind (they did a bit but rebuilt it a couple of times after the girls destroyed it again).
Steve got the gas burner going so we could cook our dinner: re-heated sausages in pita bread with beans and carrots. Rhea didn’t realise at first that if you throw your carrots in the dirt and then eat them it’s not very tasty, but she learnt pretty fast. We had some biscuits for desert then as the light was fading fast, we took the girls to their potties, all brushed our teeth and went to bed together. It had started to drizzle so there was not much else we could do. It was 8pm.
I was ‘on duty’ to get up to the girls during the night but I wasn’t sure how that would work if we were all in such close proximity. Did Steve want me to sleep closest to them so he could sleep uninterrupted? But he was already all snuggled up to Lara before I could ask. At heart he loves sleeping with the girls, notwithstanding the complaints about their wriggling. For short intervals I agree it’s cosy.
The rain pattered onto the roof of our tent. There’s nothing like sleeping to the sound of rain, and feeling cocooned against the elements in a tent, yet so close to the elements at the same time, is one of life’s simple pleasures. I nipped out briefly to put our bags and gas burner under the protection of the tent flap then snuggled back in to my sleeping bag.
– ‘What’s that smell?’, I asked after a moment. Has someone done a poo?’
Alas, Lara had. The first one in her nappy at that time of night since she was a baby. Did she want to be changed? No she didn’t. Did we want to change her? If she was happy enough not to be changed then we were happy not to go out again in the drizzling rain to get it done.
What followed, with the mild smell (you acclimatise), hard mattresses, and multiple wakenings (I think the girls were as uncomfortable as we were), was not the best night’s sleep I have ever had, I think it is safe to say.
And when they got up in the morning they thought it was funny to run off in the bush. We tried to explain the seriousness of the situation but in the end Steve said ‘do you think we could tie them to a tree with a long rope?’ I had actually been wondering the same thing.
We all had turns in the hammock, which was fun, and it was warm again. But the wind was picking up, and rain was forecast for that night. So we dismantled the tent, and I swam in the sea and danced each of the girls in turn in the waves while Steve lugged all our possessions back to the car – eight round trips in all.
We stopped for fish and chips in the bay as the girls slept, and returned home just over 24 hours after we had left to sleep in our own beds that night. Showers! Toilets, so convenient! Soft beds! It was lovely to be home.
The girls assure us that they won’t run off next time we go camping. We might camp closer to the car next time, or consider bringing a wheelbarrow like some people do (this could work if we use our roof racks for some of the gear). Maybe we’ll camp with another family to share the supervision.
I’m not too put off by this first experience. I’m sure we’re well on the way to sharing with the girls the love/hate relationship to camping that we have. And one day I hope they do it properly as we used to do: without eskies, hammocks or canvas chairs. And definitely no pillows.
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