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.
