Monday, November 12, 2007

Camping


Husbink and I went camping for the first time together (not including our stay in the garden) this weekend. I was (and I think he was too) a little apprehensive as we have very different experiences of camping.

My first experiences of camping were in America at lovely campsites with great facilities. (The one I really remember also had a trout farm so you could go along, pay your few dollars, catch a trout, they did all the icky bits and then you could cook it on your bbq (that was part of your site) that night. That was the first time I actually like the taste of fish. Anyway, I digress.) I went camping with my family once in England but lots of our nice flash American stuff got nicked and we were rather put off. My only experience since then has been at festivals (or rather that should be "festival", being Greenbelt, a Christian festival and thus although still lacking in things like flushing toilets (even those it has now having moved site), it was still all rather nice.)

Husbink has done much more of the "proper" camping thing having grown up in the Lake District and done Duke of Edinburgh awards and that sort of thing. For him, campsites are fields that may have a tap if you are lucky. Husbink has also done the festival camping thing but his have been more of the sort where toilets get set on fire and so on...

We arrived at our site on Thursday evening and I got all confused because I'd just read too many almost-the-same descriptions of campsites during the previous few days and had forgotten what this one was actually supposed to be like. Once, I got over that though, all was well.

The weather was glorious all weekend (which didn't stop us getting ridiculously cold at night) and we chilled out very well. My only intention for the weekend was that we "went camping" and got everything in working order before our intended 2.5 week trip in January. Normally when we go away I have a stack of things I want to see or do and it was really nice to be able to chill a little more. We went to Taranaki again (we spent a weekend there back in June when it was cold and snowy) but instead of staying in a posh hotel halfway up the mountain, our campsite was right on the beach (protected by sand dunes, a hedge and the owners house). Not quite from our tent but within a minutes walk from it, we could watch the sunset over the beach and the mountain simultaneously.






We climbed a crazy rock/hill thing in New Plymouth on Friday. It started out as just a steep walk but became full on scrambling before the end - and going down was done pretty much on my bottom. As we were coming down, we met two people going up who do it every day as part of their training regime. One had a prosthetic leg. I was impressed. Near the bottom we also met some vaguely insane people on their way up...one with no shoes on, the others with sandals...I don't think they made it far.






The rest of the time involved lying in parks, reading books, strolling, eating cake, lots of fish and chips, games of cards, Surfer's Highway with the black sands of Taranaki, the adventures of camping cooking and a good time all round.


We've discovered we can camp together though I think Husbink is still not entirely convinced that I enjoyed myself. I'm all set for our big holiday now - just one or two tasks to achieve before then...(more on the rising panic of moving countries again soon)

3 comments:

doctor/woman said...

wow! beautiful sunset piccys!

Ruth said...

My goodness, what beautiul hands!

AdventuringJen said...

d/w - it was a gooooood sunset :) ruth - :) why thank you! ;)