Camping, finally!

Now that Rona cases have subsided, we are free to travel domestically (well, still not to Vic, soz guys, and possibly never again to WA). It was the very first long weekend after winter when we (I) packed the car set off for Mambray Creek in the Mount Remarkable National Park. This was the camping trip we had planned for new years 2019–20 originally, that was cancelled due to the bushfires and rescheduled for Easter 2020, which was in turn deferred by the pandemic.

Third time’s the charm and we made it without incident. Although the lead up was pretty stressful and I ended up heading off for a ‘relaxing’ weekend despite not having quite completed a uni assignment that was due on the Monday … haha, I’ll just do that after unpacking the car on Monday night. Plenty of time *sweats profusely*. During the drive Bitti fulfilled every stereotype about travelling with children and announced she was BORED 10 minutes in and proceeded to feign disgust with all the views from the car window, I countered with the stereotypical parent thing and feigned excitement at seeing cows and sheep in paddocks, to no avail.

Upon our arrival to the campground, the remarkable fluidity with which Bitti switched from complaining about car boredom to fly over-abundance was exceeded only by its predictability. Admittedly, they were quite irritating. I forgot to bring the mallet so had found a likely rock nearby and used that to hammer the pegs into the rock hard earth, all the while being peppered with endless whiny commentary on the flies and, of course, the flies themselves. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered with ALL the pegs, but there was wind and rain forecast for the weekend and I didn’t want to have to leave my tent for any midnight repairs.

Once our temporary abode was secure I had a chance to look around a little. The campsite was beautiful. Massive river red gums, or as my friend was eager to point out, ‘the widow makers’, surrounded us. I tried NOT to dwell on the relevant tragedy from Seven Little Australians or the amount of wind we expected over the weekend. The sites were all unpowered, but the shower block and sink for washing dishes with hot water was quite near us, very handy with the kids. On the northern side of our site was the creek. Clearly running lower on water than it can, but still with a steady trickle flowing through an array of rocks ideal for step stoning.

The best thing about this trip was that my friend had made all the food preparations so I didn’t have to do any cooking! Actually, even better was not having to think about what to bring and somehow fit in doing the shopping before we left. Such a relief. We are all vego and they cook yummy food, and my not being the chef produced a marked reduction in complaining from Bitti about what was on offer—one of the benefits of eating with others perhaps.

Bitti always takes time to warm up to ‘new’ people. We have been camping with this family before, and had actually seen them just a few weeks earlier for a play. But it still took a bit of time for Bitti to go off exploring with the other two kids. They had walkie talkies, which I thought was a great novelty and an inspired idea for keeping track of the little devils. Except of course it relied upon them actually responding when you called them! Oh, and not leaving the walkie talkie lying in a tree hollow somewhere … What I am really in the market for is a way to insert a GPS tracker under Bitti’s skin. She has a knack for placing herself just out of my eyeline, although fairly close by, and not answering when I call so I think she’s gone completely.

The first night is always a bit of a shit show when we go camping. Bitti gets unsettled and has crazy dreams. When she was smaller she used to wake screaming a lot even at home, and this would become worse when we travelled. Let me tell you, a small child becoming hysterical at 1 am in what was a perfectly serene campsite is acutely vivifying. She would be impossible to settle until I had fully woken her up, any attempt to comfort her would set her off thrashing in her sleeping bag.

This doesn’t happen any more, thankfully, but she does still wake several times and need to have a conversation about mad things that are quite vivid to her but nonsensical. Between that disturbance and my own adjustment to the different sounds of the campsite, there wasn’t much sleep achieved. Nevertheless, on Saturday we awoke at 6 am bright-eyed and ready to tackle the day …