There's nothing like boiling the billy in the morning after cranking up the fire again.
“Shit, I just got worm in my eye.”
“Sorry, I just kicked over your drink.”
“Oops, I
just got soup in my eye.”
“Bugger, I just knocked over my drink.”
“Sorry, I just kicked over your drink.”
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” “I just sat down too fast and now I’m sitting in a puddle of overproof
Bundy and Coke.” (The rum was in a cup holder on the chair and, yep, the glass
was full. So, I suspect, was the occupier of the chair. But I’m not telling.)
Yeah, my
son, Liam, and I had some unusual conversations during our recent week-long
camping trip on the Murray River. We also shared some quality bonding time (not
that we have ever needed it), some good food, some good wine, meeting up with
old friends (OK, they’re not old) and everything else that’s good about
camping.
The hardest
part of camping, to my mind anyway, is the drive to get there. This one was a
breeze, made all the more easy for both of us (we took two vehicles: a HiLux
twin cab ute and a LandCruiser ute towing my camper trailer) because we each
have a UHF radio, so a chat was never out of the question.
“Reckon a
roadside bacon and egg sandwich and a cup of tea followed by a smoke is the
order of the morning.” Done.
We even took
the time after breakfast to roll a few smokes each to eliminate a few stops and
after a couple of hours’ easy driving (the traffic was light all the way) we
were in downtown Yarrawonga bound for the supermarket to grab some supplies
before making a beeline to a spot about 20 clicks down-river from the town, aka
Bruces Bend track.
There are
two beaches – Bruces Bend No.1 and No.2 – and after a fair bit of to-ing and
fro-ing, exploring other tracks and sites, we opted for a flattish spot on
No.2. (And before any pedant complains, not one of the Bruces signs has an
apostrophe.)
During this
early exploration, we stopped and walked around in search of firewood, which
was plentiful if you walked far enough into the bush. Lots of suitable, dry
kindling and a few decent-sized fallen branches that would become
fire-sustaining logs for what we reckoned would be a cold night.
Liam cuts a
fine figure of a bloke, walking out of the bush with a four-metre log on his
shoulder (I have just a chip on mine) without so much as a sign of straining to
carry it. Wish I had his strength. Maybe if I was 30 years younger. Just maybe.
As always,
when you find a suitable site, you position the camper trailer and tent so that
when you open the door/flap/whatever you’re
facing the river, the first thing you do is … open a beer.
I find it
always helps with set-up.
And set up we
did in not a lot of time (OK, maybe two beers each time) and then, with the
help of the bush knife I brought back from Vanuatu, we got the chairs
positioned and started a fire. Done. The light looked likely to fade within the
hour, so the timing was right.
Just enough
time before dinner to bait a hook each (we had small yabbies, earthworms and witchetty
grubs as bait options), get another beer and sit on the bank to ponder our
surroundings. It just doesn’t get a lot better.
The river was running at a slightly-quicker-than-my-jogging pace, the huge stand of willows to our left offered a lot of yellow foliage to offset the majority brown/green landscape, which at times was punctuated with the occasional kangaroo checking out its new neighbours. The fish? Obviously they had been well nourished during the day because our lines were not offered so much as a polite inquiry despite the presence of live yabbies. Perhaps we were auditioning to become members of the yabbie preservation society. No matter.
The river was running at a slightly-quicker-than-my-jogging pace, the huge stand of willows to our left offered a lot of yellow foliage to offset the majority brown/green landscape, which at times was punctuated with the occasional kangaroo checking out its new neighbours. The fish? Obviously they had been well nourished during the day because our lines were not offered so much as a polite inquiry despite the presence of live yabbies. Perhaps we were auditioning to become members of the yabbie preservation society. No matter.
Being the
well-prepared people we are, dinner was easy. A week before we left, I’d cooked
some bolognaise sauce, which I taken from the freezer the morning that we hit
the road. A little gentle coaxing in a saucepan to expedite the thawing, a big
pot of boiling, salted water for the pasta and pretty soon we were tucking into
a feed while we warmed our toes alongside the occasionally roaring fire (a
constant supply of fresh, dry wood will do that). It’s impossible not to relax
when your stomach is full, you’ve got a beer in hand, a smoke rolled and going,
a river running by and a fire at your feet ... and excellent company.
It’s difficult, too, not to want to hit the hay by about 7.30, so we toughed it out until 8.30. OK, it wasn’t tough because we’d watched the sun set directly opposite our site … through a nice gap in the tree line. As the light dimmed it was almost like our own natural TV, a shimmering patch of eerie (think good UFO-type), fading light. It was beautiful.
Sleep came easy, courtesy of an opened-up sleeping bag and a doona each (Liam has just returned from Vanuatu and is getting used to the cold again. Me? I'm just getting old), the deafening silence and the fresh air. Roll on day two.
