A 'girl break'

I truly never understood how incredibly unorganised and unprepared boys can be till this weekend.

Three of us packed up a car and drove to a pub at a half way point on Saturday morning, to wait for the 4th girl on our trip. Somewhere between the car and the stools at the bar, we decided to change our names to boys' names. We'd all managed to wear similar clothes - boots, jeans, tight shirts and vests. We looked like lumberjacks, so we gave ourselves manly names. Bruce, Roger (me), Trevor and Simon (the obligatory gay in the group). And ordered lattes.

We drove to the camp ground (part of a gorge in a national park) and discovered a large number of people already set up with campsites and fires. We set up as far away from most of them as possible, which turned out to be one of the better spots in the whole area. I don't quite understand why everyone has to congregate together, when the idea of camping is to be away from everyone else. Anyway...

We set our tent up and got our fire going. I think we were also the only ones to actually bring our own firewood. Most people were going around collecting what they could off the ground. Not ideal when it's been raining. So we ate, drank, overdosed on marshmallows. S is a chef, and she'd made fettuccine and a fresh pasta sauce, so we had that for dinner. She also made chocolate hedgehog slice with about a third of a bottle of cointreau. That was dessert. And it was good!

After dark, two boys turned up and attempted to pitch their tent next to us. Attempted. In the dark. Their biggest torch was about the size of a pen light. Their tent fell down on their first try. We laughed. It finally stayed up. It was only a small two person dome. They walked back up to their car and we heard a loud motor noise. They carried down a double size blow-up mattress. Before they even reached their tent we were rolling around on the ground, because it was obvious that the mattress was bigger than the opening of the tent. Assistance was required from two of the girls, who helped to sort of fold the mattress and squeeze it inside. At one point, one guy yelled, "It won't budge. It's stuck on something", to which the other replied, "It's me. You're squashing me!" Funniest thing we've seen in a long time! (Under the light of our lanterns and spotlights.)

Watching them try to start a fire was almost as funny. For a moment, it worked. Keep in mind, we had ours blazing for hours by that time. The boys had steaks for dinner. With barely any fire heat to cook them. In the end, they chopped them up into tiny squares and tried to heat them in a fondue pot. Yes. We laughed our arses off when they told us that! Eventually, we invited them to our fire. They gave us their marshmallows. Once they sat down, they told us they'd set out much earlier in the day, but got lost and ended up back where they started. When they told us they were accountants (and only 21yo), we laughed again. (Ian, you're not the average accountant, so you're not included in the stereotype.) At least they were laughing as much as we were. They said they were hoping to have a "man break" and that when they got home they'd be telling their mates the opposite story - that we were the ones that needed rescuing. We said maybe next time they might have their man break.

On the other side of us were three teenage boys. They had a good fire going and had food...well, teenager food - two minute noodles, packet carbonara, milk and gatorade. True. (And obviously supplied by one of their dads, who drove down to pick them up at 8.30am this morning, and who was rather concerned when we joked that they'd been drinking. Oops!) These boys were a little more prepared than the accountants, but still came to us for assistance when one of them cut his hand badly. Lucky I had big, square bandaids for him.

During the day, they played with a frisbee. During the night, they played a spotlight game (which we supervised from a distance, to ensure they didn't kill themselves in the dark). Our tents were at the base of a rather steep drop of about 10-12 metres. One of them tried to climb down the slope while playing their game. He didn't realise that the last couple of metres was not a slope, but a drop....and went crashing down onto the fence that our tent backed up onto, and into our bag of rubbish - luckily not impaling himself on the fence post. We, and his mates, asked if he was ok. No noise...and we couldn't see him. Eventually, he got up and we all breathed a sigh of relief - after rushing over with torches and lamps to see what he'd broken. Thankfully, he was ok. He'd only lost his mobile phone. Why he had it in the dark, in an area that didn't have mobile service, I have no idea. Miraculously, the boys found it a little while later. Stupidly, all three of them kept using that slope behind our tent to try and play their dumb spotlight game. Methinks boys should be proud of themselves if they manage to live to 21. No wonder that birthday is a big deal for most people.

Yesterday, we did a hike, with a bunch of other people in our social group, in another national park about an hour's drive from where we were camping. It took three hours and was pretty hard going for all of us. (I'll post photos at some stage.) Two of the girls went home after that and S and I stayed for a second night in the cold.

On the way back to the campsite, we stopped by the pub we met at on the first day. Who knew we'd be overnight celebrities? We became 'the camping girls'. All the regulars were there again. Those who weren't there the day before had heard about us. We were asked how we were doing and they all wanted to know all the details of our time so far. It was amusing when we realised the tough guys in the pub thought we were cool adventure chicks.

The 'man break' accountants only stayed one night. All that bumbling and effort to just pack up the next morning. Last night, most of the other campers had gone home, so it was just me and S, the teenager boys and one other group of campers way down the other end of the camp site, away from us. It was much colder than the first night, but we had a bigger, more kick-arse fire than the first night. Strangely, we were also a lot warmer in our tent and slept better, but maybe that's because we'd also hiked for three hours during the day.

It started to rain in the early hours of the morning and was heavy for a while. This is the second time I've been camping where it's been fine the first night and rained the second night. The only bad thing about the rain is packing up wet, muddy camping gear.....oh and having to trek up the hill to the toilet block in the cold and dark wasn't entirely pleasant, but it was part of the adventure.

We packed up and drove back to the town with the pub at about 10am this morning. There was only one place open for breakfast, so we ordered coffees and egg and bacon on toast. We drank our coffees. Twenty five minutes later our food hadn't arrived and we were hungry and pissed off. Knowing the pub opened for lunch at 11.30, we chose to ask for our money back...just as they had our food ready. We said we didn't want it. It shouldn't take almost half an hour to cook a damn egg and a bit of bacon. We got our money back and walked around the town for a while, till the pub opened, so we could get a decent meal.

Again, when we walked into the pub, we got treated like celebrities. It was weird, funny, and kinda cool. The regulars were impressed that we handled the cold and the rain better than the boys and asked when we'd be coming back again. Next time, we'll practically have to be beating off autograph hunters and doing radio interviews. I asked what goes on in that town and pretty much nothing does. It's one of those 'pass-through- towns. No wonder we were a novelty.

I'm sure there are other stories I will remember and might post as I remember them, but that's about it for now. I had an awesome time and I'm nowhere near ready to go back to work tomorrow....my body is weary.

Another early morning, tomorrow, as I get back into the groove of 6am starts at the gym. It'll be an interesting day. I just remembered I have that meeting with the CFO to 'air my grievances'. Guess there'll be some list-making done before 11.30am.

Roger, Celebrity Adventure Chick
(signing off from her Girl Break)