Kia ora, I know, I know, there are camping aficionados who love the great outdoors and particularly love living without a shower and revel in the fun of bruising their bum on a bucket, in full gaze of any passing school class.
Living in a tent opens you up to new experiences. Like being available to any bunch of crazed weirdos, looking for plants they can eat, instead of the one they’ve been smoking and which makes them see that all that’s happened since as so funny, man, but thing is mate, we’re really starving for something sweet and some idiot forgot to bring the chocolates. Maybe we could do a green-leaf exchange for that bag of sugar?
These experiences, I am told, give variety to lives that are under the sway of modern technology. We need to get away from the evil effects Broadband and Wireless have on us, get away from the expectation that if someone gets hurt, you can ring 111. We need to experience the reality of life as it was meant to be. If your stomach hurts, simply count your blessings. Worked wonders for them.
Camping afficionados tell us about the the virtues of getting back to nature, of the thrill of finding a weta in the toe of their boot, and no, the nip doesn’t hurt a bit. Truly. And the later trip to the hospital, 200 kilometres away, with a poisoned toe was not due to the darling weta, it was simply bad luck.
They also love eating cold baked beans from a can, taking turns to use the only fork, adore eating outdoors in the pouring rain with the bonus of thunder and lightning while they share dessert, a bite each of the one nectarine someone was kind enough to bring. Whatareya, they say, when you express some reservations about germs.
How wonderful it is, they rave, to feel at one with nature. Back to things as they should be before we got seduced by all those electrical luxuries like washing machines and fridges. What’s wrong with beating the washing on a stone and spreading it on bushes to dry anyway, they ask, as someone else is actually ramming their shirt against a barbed wire fence and smiling when they ask what happened to their favourite T-shirt?
If you’re picky, you can always stand the container of milk in the river as long as you remember to put it in the shade and to secure the string holding the container to a strong tree, not one which has been threatening to part company with the bank for the last ten years. Poor old Marty did that and had to walk 20 miles to the nearest store because his wife had the car key and refused to hand it over. She said it was his idea to come on this trip, to live, as he put it, dangerously, and now it is her idea to take charge of the transport and she and the six kids are going back to the perils of civilisation, the fridge, the washing machine, the hot water, the shower and Broadband because they’re quite happy to live dangerously there, thanks.
And, I read, the people organising the Anzac tent experience on Ellerslie racecourse are surprised they didn’t sell enough tickets?
The only surprise for me is that they’re surprised.
