At the last minute we decided to go camping with some friends. The plan was to go to Margaret River on Friday and stay a couple of nights. We had other responsibilities that weekend but like lots of other city folk we just never seem to find our way out of the urban jungle. So we thought, bugger it, let's go. So we packed all Friday morning, teed up our wonderful neighbour to look after the dog, chooks, yabbies and the garden and set off on our adventure...and it was. See there was this cyclone, Bianca causing strong weather warnings from Perth south and, alas causing DEC to close all campsites in its path. Just out of Bunbury a friend called to warn us. This was not the plan! We did not want dilemmas in the stinking hot truck stop, nowhere to camp and Quin in tears... but there was a glimmer of hope. Lane Pool Reserve was open for Friday night only. So, undeterred, that's where we went and it was just beautiful, a short but sweet camp. These are Quincey's photos.
Ads or Mick Jagger, not sure.
The pine trees which were full of Black Cockys
who I'm sure do not realise the terror caused by dropping pine cones
It was such a mission to get there but well worth it - even if we did get kicked out at 9am the next day. Quin took us for exploring adventures. He said he knew what he was doing, turns out he did, mostly. He spent ages sliding down a slippery rock and trying to catch taddies in the river. We saw bats and a frog crawled up the outside of our tent, we could see the silhouette.
Aside from communing with nature it is also a good chance to commune with strangers. There were about 15 other groups camping with Australia flags here there and everywhere and of course they were all lovely. At the river we chatted about marron, slippery rocks, and bloody cyclone Bianca. We had such a great time and as I was chasing after Quincey (and being one of those slightly yelly parents 'Quin come back here, now!') I remembered that I had just shaved my head and left two little rats tails at my neck, Quin had an ozzi, ozzi, ozzi tattoo transfer on his arm from a recent birthday party and, to top it off, I was holding a black cigarette lighter that Quincey had wombled from the bottom of a rock pool and was now his most treasured possession. I suddenly felt akin to my fellow patriotic Australians who are nice folk and also seemed to enjoy nature.
As kids we often went to Lane Pool during the school holidays but we never camped and I always wanted to. So now I have and really want to go back there, next time not via Bunbury! It's a funny thing that happens to my brain I reckon. When I'm there in the bush watching Quin love nature, hearing the cockys and drinking tea I think 'Yes, we must come here again and bring all our friends, we will'. Then we come home and zap, it's gone from my brain and all I think of is the grueling job of packing up. (It's a bit like childbirth where you can't remember the pain of it and then have more babies - hu! you can't fool me, hormones, I wrote a poem about childbirth! I remember!). Anyway it's weird that I manage to erase the beautiful experience of camping. So when we got back we set a date to go again. YA!
I love that photo of Adam behind the screen. And your realisation of how you must look from the outside was hilarious. My two have got lots of comments about the tattoos received from the same birthday party - not comments I would have hoped they'd garner, but oh well.
ReplyDeleteNow - I think you should reconsider you destination for this next camping trip? Lane Poole is close enough for any old weekend, but when you've got lots of friends going further afield... well,like you said, once the packings done, the hard bits over with innit?