Less Baggage Less Stuff Less Procrastination
A different kind of travelogue. As an avid young traveller I often wondered what would it would be like when I got older, gathered commitments, created children and accrued debt. This is what it's like.
Microadventure Report #2; An 8 year olds birthday party
One thing I want to do this year is translate all my enthusiasm for being outdoors into some more activity with my children. I don’t want my walking, climbing, paragliding whatever to be a thing done in isolation, separate to the most important responsibility I’m ever likely to get!
So I am trying to change from things that I want to do (like a multi-day walk in New Zealand) to what my kids and/or partner want to do. They’re not into long walks or sleeping in the snow.
Yet.
I shed a manly little tear when my 8 year old son cut short all discussions of birthday parties, guest, friends etc. He simply said he would rather go camping with his family (and Grandpa).
We didn’t go far. You don’t have to go far.
We didn’t go light. You don’t have to go light.
We didn’t go free. You don’t have to do anything anyway at all. Cormac was turning 8. We loaded up our car camping stuff and went in stayed in a beautiful, almost deserted municipal campground only 20 minutes drive away. We stayed 2 nights. (#twonights.) It was sunny. Then it rained. It was great.
Car camping is an art in itself and I suspect that there are many serious adventurers that have a lot of memorable nights racked up in the car camping category. It’s so often a part of the trip.
Our car camping set up is a curious one and I’ll share that later in a dedicated post on the gear we squeeze into our ordinary Subaru. It is an Outback (a.k.a. Liberty, a.k.a. “The Ootbag”); no big SUV. (Just not justifiable for our driving activities. Though we did manage to get the Ootbag to the Tip of Cape York Fully Loaded.)
I slept with my son in our excellent Oztent 30 Second Tent. It poured one night. We had Fires. We had Smores. (I had never heard of a Smore before.) We played on the beach. It was another few nights under the stars. No records set. No Go Pro material. A brilliant time was had by all.
Less Baggage Less Stuff Less Procrastination 