Blog

Let’s go camping said Dianne never

I am a mean wife. Unlike many of my friends who cannot wait to don their thermal undies and wrap their heads in fly nets, who salivate over the thought of deep-breathing campfire smoke, I go into melt down the moment my husband even looks like he’s thinking camping.

No one could say I haven’t tried. I spent ten days on the Simpson Desert last year sleeping on the ground in a swag that cost the same as a trip to Bali with one eye open for dingoes and snakes. (Did you know snakes turn nocturnal in hot weather?)

And before that it was the Flinders Ranges. There we were forced to toss everything including the makeshift kitchen sink back into the car at lightning speed because the dry riverbed we had camped in became a tsunami overnight.

I’ve dug countless toilet holes in the sand dutifully torching the contents before burial for a reason I still don’t understand… swallowed enough flies to feed an Iguana for a lifetime… and smiled in the face of camp-savvy ‘sisters’ who gleefully cooked up gourmet feasts over burning sticks.

Do I feel guilty? No. I only need five stars –not five million.

Unknown-6

4 Comments

  1. Leanne Albers

    I’m with you Dianne. I prefer to go ‘glamping’ nowadays. Funny, because when I was a teenager I happily went on all sorts of camping trips with the outdoor education elective group I belonged to for a number of years in high school. One notable camping trip was canoeing around Hindmarsh Island for 3 days in the July school holidays. Why go on a canoeing/camping trip in winter? Because the tiger snakes that lived on the scattering of tiny islands in that part of the Murray mouth were hibernating. Otherwise, they would swim through the water, disturbed by the splashing oars, and try to slither onto the canoes (at least that’s what our Outdoor Education Leader told us when he and his wife did the trip to suss it out during the summer holidays). Great memories of adventures in my teen years – and happy to leave them there. Now, a quiet holiday in the country or by the coast, house sitting and looking after animals for other people while they travel – that’s my kind of camping 😉

    • diannemaguire

      Oh yeah! the snakes definitely do it for me too -turn me off that is. Agreed there are some stunning sights, sounds and smells to be had from camping in Australia, but seriously… its a jungle out there. I like your style of camping. Thanks for your comment Leanne. Good luck with the draw 🙂

  2. Maree Talbot-Smith

    Wrote it perfectly! I have camped all around and through Australia before the rheumatoid arthritis took hold and disallowed me to get down to sleep. However the good bit was that I got to see all of Australia which the lack of finances would not have let me do otherwise. The camping bit wasn’t fun but the sites and the other people you meet enduring the same hardships were. I have always worn an apron to cook, wash etc and I only ever came across one other lady who did. Then there was the bath times-I did however insist on camping grounds at least with running water-I have 3 daughters so naturally I always got the bath time duties. I remember the last big one I did when we went up the centre to Darwin, down the west coast and back home-at first I was picky but coming down the west coast and staying at a park with a generator sounding like planes constantly landing, all I wanted was no noise; prior to that it was SOME grass-running water. It was amazing that all the parks we stayed in the Female loos were always furthest away. However it was long enough ago to be allowed to climb ‘Ayers Rock’, walk through water waist deep in darkness at Tunnel Creek, be ticked off from washing our car with a bucket of water and not being able to swim at the local baths as they were closed for Winter (it was 36 degrees in the shade) at Derby and go in the water tofeed the dolphins at Monkey Mia. Oh and driving our Ford falcon(the duck) across the Yellow River in Kakadu as that was a shorter way to go-regardless that the river was lapping at the doors and of course there are crocodiles. However I must admit as far as snakes go – I have seen more brown snakes at my back door, dining room door and in general around my house than I ever saw camping-Thank God!

    • diannemaguire

      I could never and will never rival your camping experiences Maree… Respect 🙂

Leave a Reply to diannemaguire