camping

Last week on Monday to Wednesday we went camping.  I am not a natural camper or a Bear Grylls type of person, but my daughters and husband love the whole idea.  Especially my youngest daughter  - whose favourite activity is to go to BCF or Anaconda and check out all the equipment.  So I went along with it.  We went to Hosanna Farm just outside of Murwullimbah.  Gorgeous country in the Tweed Valley.  I always have country fantasies about living somewhere like that and look at the houses for sale and imagine what job I will do and where the children would go to school and what kind of pony we would get, and then come crashing back to reality and realise we have it pretty good in Brisbane.

It rained for two and a half days of the three days we were here.  I am super glad we packed the gumboots, and that was the footwear of choice for the whole camping experience.  We played board games and mucked around in the bush and fiddled with the tent setup and ate a lot.  My husband packed a giant pop-up cover which I was scoffing at - it took up way too much room in the car - but I was very glad of it during the camping situation.

We swam and paddled in the dam and patted animals and had wonderful conversations and mostly got on really well as a family.  There was the traditional yelling at the kids during 'packing up the tent' time as they made themselves very scarce down at the creek.  And we didn't climb Mt Warning as we did not realise it was a five hour round trip straight up and down the mountain with a rock climb at the top.  I was not prepared for that.

Camping.  The washing up and unpacking is a killer, but the time together was worth it.

Awesome set-up

self timer photo at the bottom of Mt Warning

she's so big - she can handle water craft independently!

My husband the free form springboard champion

My husband the master packer

having a quiet chat on the way back from the creek after avoiding packing up the tent