Camping Gear Junkies

We are camping equipment junkies. Can't get enough of it and always on the look out for that one device that will revolutionise camping and make the whole experience more relaxing and enjoyable. That one thing that will mean less work.....
Ray's Outdoors is a fun way to start. We like to browse through the latest tents, weigh up the pros and cons, if it's better than the tent we have, easier to put up, pull down. Floor space, standing room, enough windows, quality. We investigate with a fine tooth comb. We are tent connoisseurs.
And so we should be, we have owned enough of them.

2 man tents, 10 man tents, canvas tents, nylon tents, dome tents, mesh tents, tents with poles on the outside, tents that stand up in a cyclone, tents that collapse in a breeze. We've also owned one caravan and two camper trailers. Most of them not at the same time.

Around 20 years ago we bought a Freedom tent and have never regretted it. This thing takes a lickin' and just keep tickin'. Waterproof, windproof and kidproof. Takes maybe 10 minutes to erect, 2 minutes if you don't count pegging it down and 5 minutes to pull it down and pack it up. I have no complaints about this one.
A few years later we purchased a Southern Cross tent for our boys. Same deal. It's just a great tent. These two tents are still with us today and used reguarly.

We made ourselves a kitchen tent too. It was one of those large portable carports and I made walls for it out of mesh. We used it for years and we still have it now, took us yonks to erect but it was worth the effort.

We like to spread out.
This is our kitchen tent, behind it was one of those tents we had for a year or two before it died.
On the left is our trusty Freedom tent and Southern Cross tent.
I have no idea why the car is backed up to the kitchen but how convenient!

Our 1st camper trailer was a nightmare. It took us hours to erect, it felt like days. We lived in this camper of horrors for 4 weeks and I think we got a total of 6 hours sleep the whole time. The roof of the bit where you sleep was no more than 10 inches from our faces. It pretty much felt like a coffin. I think. I've actually never been in a coffin to know for sure but I'm guessing that being in a coffin is pretty close to laying on this camper bed.
When we got home we sold it.......... for $500 more than we paid for it! Should have felt guilty I suppose but  we didn't.

Now we own another camper that has been affectionately nick-named Taj Mahal. I't 365 ft wide and 949 feet long. Alright, alright, I may have exaggerated a little but it is big. People actually ask to 'take a look' inside, once a boat stopped at our camp site so they could 'take a look' We were considering charging admittance. And here she is......

From right: Bedroom, Kitchen, Dining Room, Sunroom
Although only Martin and I sllep in it, the rest of the tent is communal.
On this holiday there were 10 to 12 of us
Notice that trusty old Freedom tent is still with us

On the weekend we checked out Rays looking for whatever and came across a really neat mesh tent. It was smaller than most and I thought it would be perfect for our upcoming trip to the Kimberly's. It was one of those pop-up thingys which is perfect for setting up but they aren't the easiest things to fold up. Fold here, twist there, it can get complicated so Mart decided to try folding it before we purchased. This is one of the good things about Rays. They don't seem to mind people playing with the equipment. Or maybe it's because the tents were upstairs and they had no idea what we were doing up there.
So for 30 minutes Martin followed the directions supplied and struggled to fold this darn thing. I walked away several times, because I'm easily distracted and oh, look over there, is that something we don't have? But I would eventually return to find him still wrestling. I think he had it in a half-nelson at one stage. Even he gave up twice but being one who can never be beaten by inanimate objects he would work his way back for another try.
Finally success!
And then he opened and folded again to make sure it wasn't a fluke.
Yep, let's buy it and then guess what ........ none in stock!
We didn't bother asking if the floor stock was for sale, that sucker had been twisted and folded to an inch of it's life ....... who knows how many broken pieces there were..............

So Mart and I are off to the Kimberlys in July. We try to plan our longer trips every one or two years and this is the only corner we haven't been to yet. Sometimes we fly/drive but this time we are doing the whole drive/drive and then drive some more thing.
We have given ourselves a month so the itinerary is very tight. You know, wind down the window to smell the sea air at Port Augusta, wave to the rock as we pass by, talk to the locals at a set of lights in the Alice.
There will be places where we will stop, we have to sleep don't we? Well maybe not, I didn't see any provision for sleep on the itinerary.
So the plan is. No tent, no caravan, just Mart, me, the BT50 ute and the open road. And the 6 tonne of supplies in the back. We are at the stage of  planning the layout for the ute. It has a nice and high canvas canopy so Mart is going to build a false floor for one section to house EVERYTHING and the bed will be on top. We have pretty much come to one conclusion so far. Clothes are a luxury we can't afford so we might just have to leave them behind.

Years ago we went with our two sons who were primary school age and Martin's niece and her then husband for a two day camping trip at Echuca on the Murray. We stayed 3 weeks. Everyone had one change of clothes each and all clothing was washed in the river. Did we stink? Why would you think that? Just because the publican's wife at the Torrumbarry pub sprayed Glen 20 around our table and then came back and sprayed Baygon, doesn't mean we stank. The niece and I had showers once or twice at the general store. Geeezzzz.....

It was one of our best holidays ever and still talked about. Possum piss hair, eyes swollen shut from mozzie bites, wetsuits so far up the crack of your bum you spitting neoprene, digging firepits so big it could have been filled with water so Thorpie could do laps. And that was just the niece. My boys wore nothing but bathers, I didn't know if they were suntanned or just plan dirty. They slept in a tent that we threw out at the end of the trip, ate at table and chairs we threw out at the end of the trip ........

Sorry about the quality, it is a scanned photo. Eldest son with Martin, our luxury tent in the background.

This would be our boat with Mart lifting eldest son in, niece's then husband, niece's nephew which makes him my great nephew and niece herself. You might notice the trees in the water, the Murray was in flood at the time and what we didn't know until we returned to this spot the following year was we had camped in a carpark

The people in the camp next to us had a couple of bikes that we seemed to score for most of the holiday. They just gave them to us to use and we handed them back at the end of the trip

This is niece and youngest son and Tuk, Did I mention we had two dogs with us also?
Once Niece's swollen eyes went down and she threw up the last of the wetsuit she had inhaled anally she bought the kids a paint set but painting on paper must have been too boring. This is suppose to be a picture of Tuk attacking youngest son. The grin on his face kinda gives it a whole false look :)

Now that looks a LITTLE more convinicing

Deby's Travelling Thoughts

My name is Deby, I'm a 50 somethin'-or-other woman who has just entered the age of , dare I say it? Grandmotherhoodism. I was in denial for 9 months but when the most beautiful baby in the whole wide world EVER was placed in my arms by eldest son I kinda thought "yeah, I think I'll be loving you"

 Let me go back a few steps before we all lose ourselves in the wonder of babies.

It was only 6 months ago that youngest son flew the coup to be with a terrific chickeebabe (coup/chickeebabe. Get it?) That day is hard to forget. When the door closed and youngest son had really gone my husband, Martin, (name has not been changed because there is no innocence there to protect) and I looked at each other like we had not looked at each other in 20 years. Romantic right?

Nah...... I was thinking, strangely in a Chandler Bing voice, "Oh My God, who are you?"
He was thinking "Why are you so old?" I don't know whose voice he was hearing, maybe Janice?
We were both thinking "Just you and me for the rest of our very long, long lives?"
We didn't verbalise our thoughts though, we just smirked, shrugged and sat in front of the telly for about...... hmmm roughly 3 weeks.

This story is leading nowhere. Really. Absobloodylutely no where.
So let's talk about what this blog suppose to be ........

Martin and I love to travel. No fancy Monte Carlo, Venice, Paris, Auckland trips for us. No sir-ree, I've never even been out of the country, we like to tour Australia, like the Leyland Brothers, except without the caravan and the movie cameras and the kids. And when we travel we like to talk about it. So this is what the blog is about. Over the next couple of days, weeks, years, decades, I'm going to ramble on about our trips gone by and trips in the future including a big one we are taking in July this year.

There'll be lots of pictures too. If it's possible there might even be a video or two. As long as someone shows me how to load videos onto the blog.

See you soon