Already, the Easter weekend seems so far behind us, and yet was it not bliss having a four-day public holiday weekend?
As we saw in this newspaper, and before our very eyes, Caymanian families were setting up camp everywhere in the week prior, ready to celebrate a very important family tradition.
I’ve written about my outdoorsiness in the past, but it certainly bears a revisit. I actually love the notion of camping; I’m just not very good at it. There are some children born to the skill. For example, take Australia and New Zealand. I think all their kids basically get shoved out the door with a backpack and a stick when they come of age, encouraged by their parents to go on an adventure outdoors. It’s like young Spartans being banished to fend for themselves in the film ‘300’, but without quite the same life-threatening scenarios. This is why those countries are fantastic for backpackers and campers – they completely embrace the nomadic lifestyle and have hostels and campsites dotted everywhere. That confidence and independent spirit they all exude? That’s partly thanks to a couple of a weeks in the wild, communing with nature and other like-minded folk.
Put another shrimp on the barbie … and if there is no barbie, an open fire will do nicely.
(Disclaimer: This author has no actual proof of most of the above – this is just based on her own perceptions and interactions with Antipodeans.)
Growing up in Cayman, the only camping we really did as kids was in the backyards of our parents’ homes. We might venture to set up a tent on the beach, which was very nearby our house in those days, but at the first sign of thirst, mosquitoes, or a craving for M&M’s, we’d go running to the comfort of four walls and a roof. Yeah, really roughing it.
Okay, I am super going off the path here for a moment, but stay with me. Any time I write about M&M’s, I have to check the format via Google – unless I have a bag of those sweet treats handy – because that apostrophe just seems wrong and drives me nuts. Shouldn’t it be M&Ms? I know it’s a brand name, but what are we teaching our children here? So, I dug deeper, and found a Facebook site that I will be instantly sharing with a group of people who I know would feel similarly. It’s called ‘Extreme Pedantry’ – how fab is that? And there I learned that the two Ms stand for Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, the co-founders of M&M’s, so the apostrophe denotes their ownership and creation of the candy.
Let me tell you, NO ONE is more interesting than I on a first date!
But I digress … back to the camping.
I was actually seeing an Aussie for a short period of time, and over the period where he slowly discovered that I was perhaps not the lass for him, we drove for days along the coast of amazing Australia. He had walkabout in his blood. Leathery skin, all-weather boots that could probably tackle a marshy meadow one moment and jagged mountainsides the next, driving a Jeep modified for camping anywhere. There was a bag of pots and pans in the back that looked like they’d been around since the Civil War, some folding chairs and fishing gear.
Despite what you may think, I was completely game to spend some nights under the stars. He clearly knew what he was doing, and so I was completely relaxed, knowing I was with an expert. And I was, but I was expected to muck in as well. Of course! Fine by me.
On the first evening, he found a site nestled in a picturesque area. As he set up the chairs, I was instructed to get some wood for a fire, which I did, and then I was to set said wood alight.
Well, I couldn’t have been an arsonist if I tried. Thirty minutes later, my fuel was not cooperating as he sat and watched me, bemused.
“You know what you’re doin’, old girl?” he asked, laughing as I leaned into the branches with an open flame, begging them to take.
On second thought, perhaps he was not the lad for me. I mean, I hadn’t been near a fireplace since I was a teenager holidaying with my family in Montana – gimme a break, Mick Dundee!
He finally realised we were going to starve to death if he didn’t take over. Apparently, it was something to do with a lack of kindling on my part. Anyway, he quickly got things going, heated up one of the pans, and it was dinner time.
I’m not particularly scared at the idea of wild animals, but at about 3am when I heard some mad rustling near the Jeep, I wondered what behemoth was in the thicket. As I slowly exited the vehicle, frying pan in hand, I was faced with an errant cow, not the legendary bunyip I had conjured in my mind.
Actually, frankly, the only thing that didn’t appeal to me about camping was toilet facilities. Hand to God, I would rather take my chances with a small, hidden clearing by a tree than public toilets at campsites. I feel that way when I attend concerts as well, but there aren’t so many hidden nooks by trees at stage left. I know there can be poisonous spiders, snakes and insects, but surely they would be more afraid of that sight than I would be of them?
“Let’s leave this one and find another, Nigel. I’m not sure I’ve got the jaw for it,” said the death adder to the Sydney funnel-web.
It was a two-week vacation Down Under, and as we said “goodbye” at the airport, I had a sneaking suspicion that we were on the outs. I couldn’t set a fire, and he barely tolerated the opera to which I dragged him at Sydney Opera House.
That being said, who knew what a great education the experience would end up giving me? At the end of that same week, when I returned to Cayman, we got hit by Hurricane Ivan. No running water, no electricity and reduced toilet facilities.
Step aside and leave this to me.
I started up the coal barbecue like a champion, and found novel ways to cook food with what we had – no ancient pots required. My brother Dominic (who was staying in the US at the time) sent us MREs (no apostrophe) – Meals, Ready-to-Eat – that are mainly used by the army. Add a bit of water, and they self-heat – which our friend Carol discovered when she dropped one seconds before it burned off all her fingerprints.
Yes, I had returned from my trip stronger, more camping-savvy, and ready to rough it; I could face any challenge.
I’ll leave the loo conversation for another time.
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