Tim doesn’t make it much of a secret that he’s not one for the out doors or camping. I’ve tried three times in the last ten years to introduce him to the joy that it has brought me over the years with absolutely no success.

The first time we went to the Murray River with my Dad and a few of his friends. It was, without a word of a lie, 42 degree’s over night with not a breath of wind. We barely got any sleep all night and then, bright and early at 6am…the canoe race that stops…well, stops us from sleeping…started. So just as we hit that perfect spot between nothing and dreams, all we heard was cheering from people across the river “Come on 86!” “Go 34!!”

Then, in the heat of the day Dad’s friends kids and grand kids went in to the river. Where, evebn as a non parental type…I was disgusted by their language!! These kids, not more than 10 years old were swearing with such disrespect at their parents and anyone with in ear shot had to hear it. Unfortunately, that meant us. We left, even though we were meant to stay for two more nights. I didn’t have to listen to that and it didn’t seem the weather would cool any more either. Complete failure!

The second time we went camping wasn’t so bad as this. We went to Goomburra Forest up in QLD. I believe I posted about it long ago. Everything was going perfectly. The tent went up well. The afternoon was spent taking photo’s and swimming in the creek. But come night time and time for Jaxon to sleep in a bed other than his own?? Absolute disaster!! He cried and cried and screamed and kicked and did everything BUT sleep until 4am in the morning. Then, woke up right on time at 6am! Tim and I were exhausted and he vowed never to give me another chance to show him how bloody good camping was going to be.

But this past weekend, we did go away again. And we DID have fun! In fact, I’d go so far as to say, Tim enjoyed himself more than I did!

Aside from the first two hours of our stay, everything went smoothly. The kids slept well in the tent. Dinner’s, lunches and breakfast went well. Even sleeping for us was comfortable and relaxing.

The first two hours, on the other hand…were kind of annoying. The ground where we went was soft on top, but had a layer of rock about 4 inches under ground. So not just one or two tent pegs hit rocks, or tree stumps and could easily be moved to avoid hitting them again. No matter where you were or what angle you put that tent peg in at it was going to hit the rock. And it was going to bend! Two tents, that should normally take each of us half an hour to put up by ourselves…took TWO HOURS! Two hours of lot’s of swearing and frustration!

But, once that was done very little went wrong. I mean, we had to pump up our air matress by hand because my very old electric air pump died…and Jaxon had diarrhea twice over night and threw up his breakfast on the second morning but still…WE HAD A GREAT TIME!!

As I said, other than that…we had a ball. Over the next few days I’ll share some more photo’s and a video…but for now..this is the most important thing you need to see…

…my boys, having the time of their lives…swinging in the soap on a rope!