I have always managed to resist the temptation to pitch a tent and sleep in it for a couple of nights but i was finally persuaded this weekend we packed up a tent, the youngest daughter and a 24 pack of Carlsbergs and headed out into the New Forest.
Luckily the others we were going with were far more organised and what we didn't have (kettle, spare gas bottle, frying pan, lamps) we shared out between us.
Like something out of a Western film , we circled our tents, set fire to a metal dustbin lid full of dry wood, drank beer, ate burgers and realised just how dark it gets in the country away from the city lights.
Being a town dweller, there are lots of things about the country i never realised. As well as the darkness, the silence is almost eerie and when you run out of cigarettes or milk, you can't just nip down to the local 24 hour store.
When you hear the sound of rain hitting your tent it is too late to wonder if you fixed the ground sheet properly and there is no WI-FI, telephone signal or internet on your mobile which can be very frustrating when you are trying to find out the football scores or your wife is desperate to know if Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri had left yet so she can slate them without having the egg on her face if we come back Monday afternoon and they had undergone a change of heart and were both still Arsenal players.
The nighttime sky is host to more stars than i had ever seen before although i still seemed to be always looking the wrong way when the shooting ones appeared.
All in all a great weekend and i'm a converted camper, the decision to cut ourselves off completely from all other life except from those of us on the campsite was surprisingly easy and refreshing although i did notice we all make a beeline for the newspapers when we stopped at the services.
8 comments:
Loved to hear about your adventures camping, Hanz.
My worst camping experience was in Canada when a black bear was scratching at the canvas of the tent and I was making doggish snarls to try to warn it off!
Just as well it wasn't a grizzly or I wouldn't have brought so much joy to so many American lives!
Cheers.
Hahaha! Touché, David.
The New Forest is beautiful isn't it? Did you see any stags while you were there? We didn't (on our one trip out there) but we did see lots of wild horses and ponies.
The local brewery (Ringwood) is excellent too.
I didn't see any stags but saw a few horses, cows and squirrels.
To think David, i was worried about insects and you had bears to contend with.
hanz,
life is complex and truth is simple. nature is truth. man made cities and things are falseness.
creature comforts are nice but nature is where we belong. where we came from. where we return at death.
i love backpacking and just came back from a week in Colorado wilderness. moose cow with her calf, beaver pond, trout, 14k foot peaks, stars the poke you in the eyes, looking down to the tree line, aspen groves, towering pine trees, waterfalls that become white water creeks, that become creeks, that feed rivers... awesome.
q
I agree, getting back to nature is awesome even if it takes a little while to adjust to the dark and quiet.
running water, birds, wind, creaking trees, bugs, frogs, growls and bellows, but no quiet.
q
Growls?? Bellows?? Blimey, all i heard was the occasional cricket and the creaking of air beds and a bit of snoring. Not sure i would have slept that well if i heard a growl.
Good to hear that your first taste of camping was a positive one. My days of camping are long gone, but when I was camping regularly, it was always a necessary evil, because you couldn't get to your objective and back to civilization in a day and accomplish what you were going there to do in the first place. I never understood the idea of camping for its own sake, and trust me, as a country boy, the countryside isn't as dark as you think it is. You want dark? Try Australia.
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