Off the grid in Bredbo

It seems that on Boxing Day it has become our habit to pack up and go camping off the grid for a week or so.  This year we decided to go into the hills at Bredbo, near Cooma (Southern NSW).  The spot we camped at has a speck of phone service if you get up high, and no power, but it does have the luxury of pit toilets. If you’ve ever had to clean or transport a portable camping toilet, you will appreciate that having an alternative is awesome. Even if mosquitos bite you on the bum, and the spiders are numerous. (Pro tip, take the aeroguard to the toilet and squirt it over your shoulder periodically, it will settle you know where).Camping excursions are a big undertaking for a family of our size, and it takes about a week of planning and packing beforehand. To go off grid and be self sufficient for a week, we need loads of crap. Two vehicles and two trailers, one being the camper, the other loaded with bikes and fun things. My off roading skills certainly were put to the test.

Our camp (when we go the whole hog like this) takes about three hours to set up properly, don’t ask how long it takes to pack to begin with. One of these days I will do a post about our packing list. In an effort to stress less about having enough food, and not over pack, which we often do. I decided to menu plan for this camping trip, making and freezing a few meals that could be heated up in the camp oven.  Pre-made pizza roll ups were surprisingly good. (short pastry rolled around pre cooked pizza ingredients and cooked for half an hour from frozen in the camp oven). We use two very large eskies to keep our food cool, they usually stay cold for seven days with the right prep. There was no option to go out for food and ice very easily from where we were, and don’t forget the gigantic first aide kit. I made up an all weather entertainment kit for the kids, which is a big crate full of activities the kids can sit and do out of the heat or rain.  Lot’s of crafting to be done. (Head to Kmart and drop about fifty bucks on stuff in the kids craft section, should see you sorted).When we arrived and started walking around checking out the ground, to see where the best spot to put the camper was, we noticed little holes in the earth everywhere. Great I thought, ants. Turns out we’d arrived on the morning of a mass emergence of cicada, these were our camp mates for the rest of the week.  Along with every fly in the south of the state. I decided to pack cordial to make our water supply taste a little more enticing, and encourage the kids to drink more in the heat. I’d forgotten that half of our kids have never had cordial (we banished it years ago when we moved to a house with carpet). Our youngest watched me make it and he was so confused, he thought you drank it straight and was pretty cross with me for adding water. He may as well have drank it straight, because ten minutes later the kid was bouncing all over the place.  He crashed hard.

It was cool enough in the afternoons to have a fire, luckily a fire ban was not in place where we were (for once).  The smoke was helpful to the fly and mossie situation. I was walking around with a lit mosquito coil, like a monk cleansing a temple. Kids are drawn to fire like magnets, so out come the sparklers and glow sticks.  We had a couple of close calls with snakes, stirring up a large black snake near the creek. Our youngest had a bush spider as big as the palm of my hand crawl up onto his shoulder. That event caused a sleepless night for the wee man, and the rest of us that had to calm him down. All forgotten by the next day though, when he climbed into the branches again. The wombats checked us out during the night, zooming under our feet on late night trips to the toilet. Man those little guys can move for something built like a barrel. Temperature inversion in the early morning meant we could get signal on our phones, it was the only time we would see Miss 17 awake early. “My phone works!” was heard squeaking from within her swag one morning.

By day six the children have decided that camp life is the way things are now, and are devastated when we suggest a big cook up of all the left over food (because I still over packed anyway). Every one has a dirt tan. Our shower is an elaborate set up of batteries, gas and pipes. If you’re in need of an expensive hobby, give camping a go. Solar panels, batteries, water heaters all add up to an expensive crappy shower.

But after a week, the sound of the birds, the crackle of the camp fire, and the view of the Milky Way affects your brain, you feel the need to sit out late at night and look up at the sky. You start to wonder why you don’t do this at home.  We could have a camp fire at home right? 

So despite how much effort and planning camping is, you know you will go again. It’s too much fun not to.