A little camping
A little time out of town, uncontactable, in nature can do wonders for the soul and the headspace. Recently I had 2 nights away – 140km of thereabouts from Brisbane yet a world away from the hustle and bustle that is daily life.
Driving up, it was quite ethereal driving through mist which limited vision to maybe 150/200m. It was about 11.30am when I was driving through these conditions. It was sprinkling rain, fine and sunny then mist up in the ranges.
I don’t take the highway. Instead, I head from Brisbane to Samford and through the D’Aguilar Range (which is majestic and the views across the valleys are some of nature’s most amazing efforts) then to Kilcoy, turning right and heading on to Peach Trees Camping Gound – the first place I took myself when I started camping. The site is looking a little neglected, much as I felt when I arrived there – as the suspension bridge and walks are not accessible at the moment.
There were few cars on the road as I drove the last 40km in. There were more than a few people camped onsite yet not as busy as it has been at other times. There was clear weather, then sprinkling then clear then cockatoos making raucous noise, playing games of tag and chasey in the sky. I love the way they swoop and turn, carry on making noise, then set themselves up on the branches, leaning over as if doing a handstand to check the greenery. I head the scrub/bush turkey come past – it has a grunt sound.
Having selected the spot where I would set up camp – the very end of the site – I get out the gear. I realise that now is not the time to check that your gazebo has a cover (which it didn’t) and that your ensuite for the toilet doesn’t have poles. Note to self – check this and sort this before Easter. So, I make the best of the awning which extends off the car, to squeeze the top of my swag under and a chair as well as my porta-potty. Thankfully, even though the gazebo wasn’t being used this time, I had thrown in a wall – very handy for a teensy bit of privacy.
After pouring myself a wee dram, I settled back to enjoy the sounds of the birds, listen to the rain on the canvas of the awning and enjoy the fresh hair. I was reading nothing of any consequence – simply some novels on my fully charged Kindle. The breeze drifted through then the humidity returned, playing this game of cat and mouse repeatedly through the evening. There is absolute silence after the aerial performance of the cockatoos (which seems to go on forever) and the rain, the occasional drop on my canvas roof seems so loud.
The breeze causes droplets to cascade in a stream off the roof, it brings its own shower as the trees are stirred up. The kookaburra chortle a short distance away as they move from tree to tree. There are only a few of these birds compared to the dozens of cockatoos.
There is therapy in a camp fire – addiction too, watching the fire as it licks at the kindling then the timber, turning various colours and leaping and bounding. The night time chorus of frogs and insects commences and goes for a couple of hours. By about 8.00pm each night, I am tucked up in bed, mostly because it is raining and there comes a point when you get tired of making do scooched in under the awning and the “wall”.
The morning sqwarkfest starts at about 5.30 – it is in full throttle. It beats waking up to an alarm clock. The chatter and screeching of the birds is accompanied by rain as I pondered what a bedsit would be like, whether it had much more room that what I was enjoying. I hear the sound of drops on various surfaces around me – the ping on upturned cast iron, the splat on canvas, the tinny on the car. The lower, exposed, part of my swag is saturated. As I ponder making a coffee, the bush turkey is starting his rounds for the day, grunting his way along.
Later, there are a series of goannas who decide to check my firepit and camp out. I confess to not being enamoured of these relics of the dinosaur era. I am quite happy to keep my distance and watch as they amble about, stepping, or maybe not, or maybe yes over the edge of the firepit and scrounging around in the ash. There is the early morning pass, then the later morning pass then the double pass one going one way and the other opposite, then the afternoon pass. I lose one as I follow it around the car, from a distance, wanting to keep a health distance between us, then it reappears and wanders on. The duck family visits and wanders about and there are small fungi popping up here and there of nondescript colour.
There are so many simple things to enjoy – the fresh morning, drops glistening on the grass as the lower clouds scoot by, the blue sky as it plays peek-a-boo whilst the big metal birds known as airplanes (and you can hear them way up there in the sky) glide above all of this on their way to a far-flung destination. The sun tries valiantly to peer through, sprinkles dislodge and plop, the breeze dances around. Nearby the hills are rolling and verdant green, having benefited from a wet season. The ground is softer for the tent pegs I am using as anchor points.
I content myself with the fact that I have wine, books to read, can cook when it’s not raining, and I have a spot under cover in a fairly comfortable chair. The esky is my drinks/dining table. I cook simple food – omelette, sausages, assembling a wrap.
My second nights’ sleep is better, more relaxed. The weather breaks on the last day as it is the day I am heading home. The upside is that the gear I am packing up has dried, just a little, and is not as sodden as it was 24 hours before. The morning is brisk and beautiful, delightfully blue sky’d with lots of bird chatter.
Heading home, I stop for a coffee and breakfast as I am heading back for work in the afternoon. There is mist again – almost as heavy as what I drove through heading out. It causes you to focus and pay really close attention to the roads. It stops you being distracted by the spectacular views of the valleys. The temperature at this stage is 20 degrees. The range drive is not white knuckle. I stop at a lookout to see what I can see of the Glasshouse Mountains. I cannot se the ocean but the mountains are visible and certainly not glasshouse from this angle.
2 nights, at this stage, is not enough however it gets me through. It is over 2 years since I have camped. There is a peace that comes with this space, with being away, with getting back to basics. I am not someone who has to be with another all the time. I cherish this time alone to re-charge. It is my space, my sanity. There’s something special about getting back to nature and simply being.
