In the wild with the Oxlades......

We have just come home from a weekend camping trip and I have to say that we encountered God's creation and nature itself in it's purest form.

Everyone knows that successful camping trip, begins with the correct packing.During the week, I had given some thought as to what to pack for the weekend, but kept putting it off. On Friday night I said to myself, "it's only for one night, I'm not going to think about what to pack, I'll just chuck a few things in the car. She'll be right". (mistake no. 1)

It was also a fairly hot, steamy, muggy, horrible day and our little car (bless it!) has no air conditioning. "Still, it's only an hour and a half away, she'll be right", I thought as we pulled out of the driveway (mistake no.2). We only needed to make a quick stop at a camping store in Gympie to pick up an adaptor to fit our portable stove to the gas cylinder.

After about 45 minutes driving around Gympie trying to find someone with the correct fitting, I very grumpily (and hotly) announced that we will be eating sandwiches for tea and breakfast instead of our lovely BBQ fish and pancakes. Of course everyone was thrilled with that idea!

When we finally arrived (31/2 hours later), all my whining came to an end as the campsite itself was just gorgeous! Beautiful green grassy slopes with plenty of shade, a huge lake, hot showers and even a little kiosk for those essential forgotten items (no luck on the gas adaptor!). We found the perfect spot under the shade of some big trees and began our setup. By the time we were finished, all we could think about was going for a swim. So bathers on, towels in hand we headed off for a cool, refreshing, much needed swim (mistake no.3).

I had been told that the lake was perfect for children as it was quite shallow, and shallow it was. So shallow in fact that upon stepping into the water at the edge, the water was HOT! Not just warm, but oh-my-goodness-that-is-really-hot! We waded out for ages and at last the water got above knee level and slightly less warm. So we wallowed around in the water trying to decide if it was in fact refreshing at all.

Dying for a cup of tea, Nev inspected the gas oven-connection-thing and figured it all out, so things were looking up. We sat quite contentedly, tea in hand, slapping at the mozzies when the thunder began. "Hail and flash floods" were the BOM's pronouncement. "Oh ha ha, the BOM is always wrong", I said optimistically (mistake no.4).

They were right!!! Not long after we finished tea, the rain began. We packed everything rather quickly in the car and abandoning my lovely bottle of red wine to the elements, we hightailed it to the relative safety of the camper. A fantastic display of lightning, extremely loud thunder and literally rain all night long kept us all from that blissful state of sleep, and we all sort of dozed throughout the night.

Sleeping four people in a tightly zipped up camper, makes for an extremely stuffy nose the next morning. So awakening early to flu-like symptoms, set the tone for the rest of the day. It was indeed a bit cooler, but everything was soaked and the mozzies were out in force (why, God, why did you make mozzies???!!!). Still, after an early morning walk to see the plethora of kangaroos, a pancake breakfast, a swim and a hot shower. All was well in the world and as my gorgeous husband said "at least we're all together, right Helen".