Camping is king… until you go

As an avid camper, I quite often tow our one-ton house on wheels to a remote site where we can relax and get away from the city (or town).

My home town (city) might call itself a city, but trust me, it has a collective small-town mentality.

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Mogale City is more of a village, to be perfectly honest. Be that as it may, getting away from the hustle and bustle, Friday night street racing, Saturday school sport with its traffic congestion and all the other stress-inducing village activities, camping is king of mental happiness.

Until you go camping.

Camping, for those who don’t know, consists of a number of very different phases. First, there’s the packing.

At my age, clothes, food, toiletries, and pills take preference. On our penultimate, I forgot to pack clothes. Last time out, I forgot the pills.

I kid you not. But camping is very much about making do with what you have, so I’m not stressed by the details.

Arriving at the destination, setting up camp is the obvious next phase.

As a veteran with almost four decades of experience, this is my walk in the park. I literally go for a walk while the staff at the resort set me up.

The idea after all, is getting away from the reality of work. Then the camping begins. My favourite is the Bushveld TV.

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That’s the fire, long after the braaivleis has been devoured and you sit in silence around the flaming hypnotist, only breaking eye-contact to stare up at a star-spangled sky with a glass of red wine to keep the mozzies away.

Later, when sleep is king, quietly sneaking to the ablution at 3am, then finding five zebras or a family of impala asleep under your gazebo.

That’s camping. Unfortunately, most of the people who make camping a reality for us village folk, don’t go camping, because they’re already there.

And because one tappet once speeded a decade ago, they install 41 speed humps on the final 3km leading up to the resort. Towing a caravan or camping trailer is difficult enough.

I don’t need resort or lodge owners to make it more challenging. First question I ask when making a booking is whether there are speed humps.

If the answer is yes, you won’t be selling me the toiletries I forgot at home.