camping the three

We're nearly home with new fascinating insights into camping, rules of survival and over-shares about abandoned personal hygiene and our dog's predilection for eating poo ... but before we get to that, and if you're not bored to death by our ruddy outdoors-ness yet, one last camping post from yesteryear ...

October 27, 2010

We're just back from a fabulous little camping trip - our first in over a year (bit of a record for us) and our first with Sunday - I've a couple of thoughts ...

~ how is it that the loudest voice in the campsite, or at least the one that carries the clearest, is always the most boring?
This is not when you overhear a revelatory explanation of Derrida, a fascinating political theory or a hilarious anecdote. No, the voice that wafts across to your fireplace is money down bitching about the state of SA sports. Or who should have won a recent reality chef contest. Or rehashing boring previous holiday stories, exactly how many kilometres were traveled between one boring destination and another, how many boring meals were eaten and at what price.
Also, you quickly realise the correlation between how many glasses of wine The Voice has had and how boring it becomes. By the 3rd evening you can almost set your watch by it.
If you were wearing one.

~ this is of course only a problem when you're staying in one of those camping spots where the sites seem to be right on top of each other, just the merest hedge - if you're lucky - separating you from your neighbours. At Addo this last week this is as tastefully done as possible, but none-the-less you are likely to learn far more about your neighbours then you may have chosen to. As no doubt they did about us.
'Are you going to give the baby some boob now Mum?'

~ when you go somewhere like Addo, out of season, mid week, you find all your fellow campers are retirees, living the dream wandering round the country in their camper vans - replete with satellite dishes, fold-out dish-washing racks, homemade curtains and high tech camping chairs. We were surrounded by these and I imagined their hearts sinking as we pulled up with two kiddies live-wired on the back seat.
But of course this combination of olds and smalls worked surprisingly well. The oldies missed their grandkids and smiled indulgently at our girls. And they kept the same hours - early to bed and early to rise. No loud music keeping our kids awake, and no need to hush the children's excited early morning shenanigans.

~ when camping one can often expect strange night time adventures ... Pre-babies Husband and I once lay tense and awake in our tent for long minutes convinced someone wearing flip-flops was creeping around our campsite. Eventually we shone our torch beam out, only to catch the small glinting eyes of a tiny little hopper mouse.
On arriving at Addo I taught Friday to read the different signs for the Men's and Ladies toilets. We were later to rue the pedanticness of a 3 year old when Husband carried her off to the loo at 1am only to return unsuccessful. Even half-asleep she wouldn't let him take her into the Men's, and he didn't want to go into the Ladies for fear of encountering a weak-bladdered Granny. We had to stifle our giggles in the silent dark.

But my favourite nocturnal adventure of this recent trip happened to Husband on the night he spent camping alone on his drive up. The place he stayed at had two horses roaming around the campsite. They were friendly and seemingly unconcerned by him. In the night however he woke to a really strange and undecipherable noise. He could tell the horses were distressed, but what was that clanking?
One of the horses, overcome with curiosity, had become entangled in his camping chair and was getting more and more freaked out, eventually running wildly around the campsite, whinnying and tossing its head. Husband was just wandering what(tf) to do when the horse shook itself free, leaving the chair unscathed in a muddy heap, nothing damaged but equine pride.

Fun times. I like to camp. And we're so happy that our daughters seem to too.

camping the two

More about camping ... (In fact, a camping trip we took exactly 3 years ago! Let's hope we're not out there, experiencing too much of this, while you're in here, all warm and cosy, reading about it.)

April 27, 2009

The thing about camping is ... you never know what you're going to get.

A good camp is a thing of wondrous beauty and infinite soul-delight. A bad camp is, well, pretty shitty.
This was a bad camp. And extremely shitty.
Herewith a seasoned camper's guide to seasonal camping:

Rule 1: Be Game.
Big storms predicted? Bah. Potential very cold conditions? Bah. Arriving after dark and setting up camp with a small child? Whatever.
What's the thing about camping? Yup, you never know what you're going to get. But if you don't leave the house, you'll never find out.

Turns out - in this case - that what we got was a dark dank field, miles from anywhere, with no proper signage, no hot water (which we were promised), no running water (except from the sky - in buckets), and a veritable CARPET of cow shit. Which the puppy thought was delicious.

The next morning. Still raining. We'd picked up a lot of poo. 

Rule 2: Be Prepared.
And if not, be innovative.

Such as, when feeding your small child a picnic supper on the front seat of the Jeep in the dark and pissing rain, and on discovering that you have no spoon and that to get one would involve getting wet and covered in cow shit and maybe the dissolution of your marriage, make a plan by locating said child's toy box in the back of said Jeep and feeding her yoghurt off a small plastic spade.

Rule 3: Stay Upbeat.
I mean, it's not like you're going to turn around and drive home right? Not after packing all afternoon and driving for hours and getting all excited and finding someone to feed the cats. And bah-humbugging in the face of everyone's dire predictions that you'd be rained out ... cough ...


Nah, you push through the rough patch and the next thing you know the tent is pitched, the child is peacefully asleep, it's stopped raining, someone's gotten a bonfire going and you're holding a glass of wine. And right then you're really happy to be there.
Of course the puppy's still eating cow shit but hey ...

Rule 4: See the Beauty.

Protea Aurea - isn't she utterly beautiful?

'Cos regardless of what kind of camping experience you're having, you're outdoors see, and ergo there'll always be something beautiful.

Rule 5: Know when to Quit.
And pack up the kid, the dog, the wet and shit-bespattered tent, and make haste to a friend's beach-house for the rest of of the weekend.

camping the one

We're off camping in the Cederberg this week and next, our consolation prize for not making it to AfrikaBurn this year.
Pretty good consolation prize if you ask me.


We'll be at Beaverlac for 3 nights with friends and then heading further north to Enjo Nature Farm - a farm we've heard much about but not stayed at before.
As I've said before, we're happy campers, so I thought I'd re-post some bits and pieces I've written about camping over the years, and why we love it so much.

January 20, 2009

We spent the weekend in a teepee, at this wonderfully hippie-hey-wow-like-awesome-man retreat, and I have to say there really is something quite magical about these big, circular tents. I did indulge my inner Sioux a little...

I also gave a lot of thought to camping - as a concept - as someone recently told me that they didn't really get the attraction. I think it's one of those things you're either into or you're not. I think this also depends largely on whether you grew up camping.

I could say that you need to be into nature, have a fairly relaxed attitude towards cleanliness, be able to do without home comforts or access to technology, and have a very relaxed attitude towards bugs - but many people have all of these and still aren't fans. It's really not a very easily definable thing.

All I know however, is that I LOVE camping, am never happier than when cooking on a fire (as long as I've got gas to boil a kettle for tea), sleeping in a tent (as long as I've got a comfy mattress and warm enough bedding), waking to the fresh outdoor morning air (as long as the sun isn't directly in my eyes) and getting very dirty feet (as long as there's somewhere to swim). So you see, I'm not as dye-hard (pun intended, sorry) as some campers out there, but I do love to camp, and here's why.....

... there's nothing as soul-satisfying for me as spending an evening cooking and laughing around a big open fire,  slowly rotating your body to evenly toast all your exposed bits, eating crispy braai-ed lamb chops, bread baked in the ashes, a roasted mielie or jacket potato, being among the last to linger as one by one your fellow campers totter off to bed, finally saying your good-nights yourself and padding off through the darkness, following the beam of your torch, a bietjie gewyn, brushing your teeth from an ice-cold mug of water on the side of a bubbling stream, watching the moon hang low and heavy in the sky, quietly opening the flap to your tent and pausing to listen for the snuffly breath of your child asleep inside, then quietly undressing and stepping off the soft grass and into your chilly bedding, snuggling in until it slowly warms, drifting off to the sounds of crickets, the wind in the branches above you, or the deep ponderous silence of a deep, dark night...

.... waking in the early dawn to the back and forth earnest-sounding conversation of two owls in the trees nearby, getting up to make sure your kiddie is still covered up, pulling your own blankets up higher against the dawn chill...

.... waking later to the far-off sounds of children laughing, the clink of coffee cups, the wafts of wood-smoke as the rest of camp awakes, washing your face in cold mountain water, having the best tasting cup of coffee you'll ever have - the one which is brewed and drunk outside - having a leisurely breakfast of the kinds of things you'd probably never eat for breakfast at home, and then finding a dam or river to soak the graininess of the night away, and take deep breaths of pure, untainted, uncomplicated, country air...

 

 You (well I) gotta love it.