The first day of 2020 found me camping in the Victorian bush, at a ‘family’ festival we were definitely not hip enough for. The experience led me to count the hours, minutes until we returned to the tiled safety of our suburban unit.
I couldn’t see myself camping again for at least another 10 years. Then our three-year-old would be a more independent teenager, and perhaps we’d be ‘camping’ in one of those RVs that wakes you up with fresh coffee.
Camping is one of a long string of activities that I’m just not ready to give up on. That I keep trying again and again, hoping that this time I would fall in love with it. That I’d be good at. I try desperately to summon the elusive camper in me, the one who doesn’t mind the dirt between my toes, queuing to have a shower, or drop toilets.
Camping is one of a long string of activities that I’m just not ready to give up on.
Last year we bought a 10-people tent (there’s only three of us). It looked great in the camping store and we could see, almost touch the happy campers it would make of us.
Two bedrooms separated by a walk-in wardrobe/pantry/hallway middle area. It came with blackout technology, so we could sleep in as late as 7am. Clever lighting, so we could toss those silly miner lights. And of course, ‘instant’ setup, so even the clumsiest camper could manage (we had to watch videos on repeat for around two hours to get the ‘instant’ effect).
It could have turned even the most reluctant camper into a hopeful one.
But the dream was just that, of course. The tent couldn’t shield us from the intense summer heat, nor from the uncomfortable sleep. We took it camping during the start of the worst fire season last summer. One day the fire warnings were so worrying, the bush so dusty and hot, we ended up driving all the way back home and sleeping under our safer, suburban, less nature-embracing abode.
It took me a year to get over that camping experience. But it was the kind of year after which any opportunity to leave the house was attractive. A year where my mind had plenty of time to restore the mythical image of camping.
So camping did get another chance.
This time I booked a whole week of camping goodness. My partner was pleasantly shocked. Of course, he and our three-year-old take to the dust and dirt camping abundantly offers like ducks to water.
The tent’s second bedroom was, of course, unnecessary for us. Our daughter refused to go to sleep in it, and we all had to squeeze on the one double mattress. And then one night I woke up to my partner’s rushed voice, sheets being pulled from under me and wet pyjamas.
Our daughter hadn’t wet her bed in eight months. We had no spare sheets, no spare mattress, no spare anything. But being the great camper that he is, my partner quickly took the sheets and pillowcases off, turned the mattress around, and changed my daughter’s clothes.
It felt like a new kind of initiation into the world of camping.
Every time we mention camping in conversation, people share their own camping stories. The friends whose tent was broken in half by strong winds in the middle of the night, the friends who spent a sleepless night calculating how far the lightning was striking, the ones whose tent got flooded, also in the middle of the night.
Embracing some level of discomfort seems to define camping.
Embracing some level of discomfort seems to define camping.
A popular type of discomfort is the lack of sleep camping offers. Whether it’s the uneven ground, the flimsy mattress, the strong winds, or the neighbour’s snoring, camping has something for every brand of insomnia.
Carrying a 27-kilos backpack for the three or so hours it takes to get to Waterloo Bay from Tidal River to then sleep on uneven ground and shower with wet wipes takes a certain kind of person, right?
A little part of me wants to be that kind of person.
Why, I wonder, when I’m pretty open about begrudging the camping experience. From setting up tent, to the moment we pack the car again, I can’t hide my ennui.
And yet, when my partner proposed we leave a day earlier on our last trip to avoid packing in the rain the next day, I felt my heart drop with disappointment. I wasn’t ready to leave. I had to convince him to stay another day. Is discomfort growing on me?
Maybe I can never get myself to love the camping in real time, but I think I’m starting to appreciate the inevitable camping stories. The sense of belonging, of camaraderie that comes with it. And the discomfort-embracing inner camper I’m starting to see glimpses of.
