By KATE HUNTER
If you are reading this now, it means I am camping.
Yes, it’s a long weekend here in Queensland, so naturally we’re leaving our comfortable house (hot water, refrigeration, two toilets … BEDS) and heading into the freezing bush to spend three nights huddled around a campfire.
That’s the best case scenario.
If the forecast of ‘chance of showers’ runs true to form, we’ll be huddled under dripping canvas reading my friend Robin’s collection of ‘Hello,’ magazines, nicked from her workplace. Good times.
Do you see the weirdness of this situation? Four families, all with solid homes in peaceful suburbs, CHOOSING to spend their leisure time boiling drinking water and queuing for composting toilets.
From my place in the queue I often ponder what people not so fortunate would think of us and what we do in the name of fun.
In many parts of the world, living under temporary canvas shelters is normal. People don’t do it for fun. They dream of clean beds and hot showers. They’d love to bath their children in warm, soapy water, while we leave home with the intention of seeing our kids get filthy.
Still, we do it. We do it for the reason we do so many things that make no sense, ‘Because the kids love it.’
1. Even if you hate the very idea of camping, never go for, ‘just one night’. Insist on a three night minimum. The amount of packing and cleaning up is the same for a week as for one night. You need to make the window of enjoyment as wide as possible.
2. At least one couple will have a major bust-up over a misplaced torch.
3. Composting toilets are not odourless. And when you find yourself in a queue behind a fella with the Sunday paper folded under his arm, you’re in big trouble.
4. All children are pyromaniacs. Most men too.
5. Children who have not wet the bed for years are very likely to wet the sleeping bag.
6. It takes three days, or the duration of your camping trip (whichever is the greater) to get a sleeping bag dry. The wee smell is there forever.
7. No one knows where the Stingose is.
8.Even if you never have sex, you will have it less while camping.
9. All children know a rude version of ‘On Top Of Spaghetti’. As long as your kid’s is not the rudest, don’t worry about it.
10. There will be bogans in the campsite next to yours. This is fact, not snobbery. Even bogans think the campers next to them are bogans.
11. At some point you will need to ask the bogans how to connect the gas bottle. So be nice.
12. No matter how many tea-towels you pack, you will not have enough.
pathetic first-worldnessCamping tops my list of things we choose to do that are uncomfortable, expensive and possibly in our spare time. Here are three more:
• Obstacle Course Racing: This is such a THING now. Inspired by military training courses, it seems thousands are giving up perfectly good weekends to climb up nets, crawl through mud-pits and trudge over rocky hills.
Not doubting the fitness benefits, but if you told an actual soldier that you were PAYING to do it at 6am on a Sunday morning when no one is actually shooting at you, they might think you were a little shell shocked. Without having ever been shelled.
• Eating like a caveman: Otherwise known as the Paleo Diet. That’s meat, veg, fruit, grains and nuts. No bread. No chocolate. No sweet chilli sauce. There’s no doubt it’s healthy but didn’t we evolve so we could have, you know, some Vegemite toast once in a while?
Enjoy our bit of bison with a blob of sauce? Sure the processing pendulum, has possibly swung too far but I’d say if Fred Flintstone got his hands on a sausage roll he’d swap his brontosaurus burger in a heartbeat.
• Collecting things: Having never been a collector, I admire the dedication required to sniff out that missing teaspoon or another thing bearing a duck motif, but I admit I’ve never understood the satisfaction a collector feels when she stands back and says, ‘Yes. There it is. The quirkiest pepper-grinder this side of Pepperville, Indiana.’
What do you enjoy doing that makes zero sense to others?
Top Comments
Loved this post - makes me want to go camping again!
Love getting back to the basics and spending time with your loved ones and nature. As kids, we would go camping as a family every year and I still have fond memories of kayking, fires on the beach, bushwalking and the joys of findind a frog /cane toad /goanna in the toilet cubicle.
I went camping recently for the first time in YEARS and all those priceless memories came flooding back. Showering with babywipes should be added to my list of skills on my CV.
I love camping. It is actually one of my escapes and unfortunately I can;t do it more often. Where I go with my family has no mobile service (utter bliss) and we just set up tents on the banks of a river on friends land. We fish (I watch instead of fishing) go for walks, swim in the river and literally just relax. It is one of the times where I am truely relaxed as there is no pressures of the modern world around me. There are no toilets on this land so bush it is and we normally go into town (literally one small shop and public toilets) once a day to get more supplies like perishables and beer for those that want it, and to use real toilets. Bathe in the river. I know it sounds crazy but it really is actually amazing and peaceful.
In saying this a holiday in 5 star hotels is also amazing to me, but in different ways :)