Wednesday 6 August 2014

That time we went camping…

I have had this blog post half written for a ridiculous time, and it occurred to me that our camping trip was about 2.5 months ago and it was time to get this post published!!
 

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Yep, we went camping with a two-and-a-bit month old baby. Honestly, camping with babies is way less stressful with babies than toddlers. Babies stay in one spot when you put them down. Babies stay in their warm clothes once you’ve got them dressed. Babies don’t try and play with the fire.

Anyway. We went camping at the beautiful Kenilworth Homestead. It’s a great place for camping.. close enough to civilisation that you can go and buy things that you may have forgotten, it has flushing toilets and hot water showers, and acres of beautifully manicured green grass on the banks of the Mary River.

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It’s a cool place, and has heaps of memories for me, because my family actually lived there (in a tiny duplex behind the main homestead in the picture there) in the early 1990’s when my dad used to be on staff running camps. Chances are if you went on a school camp in the 90s at the Kenilworth Homestead, my dad cooked your food and organised your activities. So it was extra cool for me to go back and check everything out from an adult perspective.

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We chose a gorgeous shady spot to set up our campsite. We went with a couple of other families, and decided to set up Petes ridiculously enormous tarp as a central ‘living area’, with our family tents around it. This is the first time that we had opened up Pete’s tarp which he got for his birthday last year, and we knew it was big but boy…. is it big!!!

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Quinten was our site supervisor, and gave Keith from The Block a run for his money!!

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Pete was in his element. Between our group we had enough equipment for a really great set up.

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Our tarp had plenty of room for a kitchen and dining area, as well as a 3x3m picnic rug which made a play space for the kids.

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Our family realised that we would no longer fit in our tent! Luckily Pete still had an old 4-man stowed away, so we set that up for the kids.

Both sides of our family has since chipped in for Pete’s dream tent for his birthday present. Boy-oh-boy… just you wait till you see it!

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Pete kept the fire going for the whole weekend, and we cooked some pretty delicious food on there. Pete had it down to a fine art, and the kids were all completely enthralled and very keen to help whenever possible.

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We spent the days hanging out by the river, sitting around talking and doing an awful lot of eating!

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Mayana is standing in front of the schoolhouse where I started my education. She couldn’t believe that this was my school.. it didn’t match up with her experience of what school is at all! The building is in disuse now, and is filled bits of broken furniture and pieces of wood. There are signs up warning against entering. But it still brought back a lot of memories… it’s a pretty special place to me – I learned to read there!

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Quinten coped splendidly. It was quite cold, which disrupted his sleeping a little, but once he was snuggled into bed with Mama and Papa, we all got a bit more shut-eye.

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And well.. this photo of Mayana and Reuben not long after we pulled out of the driveway of the homestead is pretty telling as to how much fun they had!!

Camping is something that Pete and I both love to do, but seem to put off, thinking that it will be too much work with the kids. I’m glad that whenever we decide to do it we always prove ourselves wrong, and find it pretty much the complete opposite.

Pete has a whole week of holidays booked in the September school holidays and we are looking very much forward to heading out for another family camping trip and trying out our brand new house-tent!

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