We went camping again!

As most of the state celebrated coming out of lockdown by catching up with family and friends, we decided instead to spend the weekend isolating ourselves in the middle of nowhere.

😂

We actually booked the site well and truly before the easing of restrictions were announced. It would’ve actually been nice to have people around for dinner and everything at home, but we’ll just have to wait until next weekend.

Now, I actually did try and look for other spots this time, but none of the other places had the same sort of things as this current place we’ve been going to.

Our starting criteria for camping grounds tend to be as follows:

1. Noise (is it quiet?)
2. Spacing of sites (is each site far away from the neighbouring sites?)
3. Ease of access (is it ages away? Is access weather dependent?)
4. Nature (how pretty is it?)
5. Walking/hiking trails (are there any and how hard are they to do?)
6. Facilities (bathrooms? Running water?)

And this place just has most of the things we want in that list. The sites are very secluded, there are tonnes of trails nearby, it’s pretty as hell (see pics), and it’s relatively easy to get to.

Sure, the drop toilets freak me out a lot- I have this irrational fear of drop toilets since I had to use one when I was a toddler. The pit/hole freaked me out and it’s just stuck with me.

But it’s a small price to pay for the serenity.

By the time we arrived on Friday evening, it was still sunny, but within five minutes or so, it went from clear blue skies to…

That.

So pretty, but also somewhat eerie.

We could already see these dark clouds rolling in from the south when we got there, so we hurried along with setting up camp. My partner had cracked open his first beer of the trip when the rains finally hit, and it was really pleasant to just sit inside the tent and listen to it fall against the canvas.

It was so warm on Friday that we didn’t bother to set up the wood stove. Suddenly the tent was 30% more spacious, so that was quite nice. 😂 We ended up not using the wood stove at all this time. We cooked on the gas stove and/or fire pit instead, and used our wool off cuts for warmth.

And Saturday was mostly spent just sitting under the awning as the rain pelted all around us.

We did go for a short stroll to the nearest waterfall.

But then it started pelting again so we headed back to camp.

And I even managed to finally use the mess tin to cook rice, so we had a very tasty steak and rice dinner on the Saturday.

This might be it for tent camping this year (we tend to avoid warm weather camping), but so far it’s been really fun. I’m looking forward to going again as soon as possible.

Categories: General

Tagged as: 2021 Australia camping cooking hobbies outdoors spring Trangia Victoria

ABugsLife

A Ph. D graduate in Microbiology, residing in Victoria, Australia. Currently working in multiple locations but still in the STEM field. 👀 🦠 🧫 🧬