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| Our Family |
I guess we are fortunate living in rural SE Queensland from where we have been able to see a fair bit of North Eastern Australia without having to travel too far.
Dave (Me, Dad, Blog Admin)
Joanne (Mum)
Nicholas (Oldest Boy)
Samuel (Youngest Boy)
Why We Go Camping
I have always enjoyed camping, starting as a young boy camping with the boy scouts and my father, those were very simple camping trips.
In the Boy scouts we would carry our gear into the bush and set up old canvas tents that had no zippers or flywire, eating canned food often cold because we could not start a fire, we would often be cold, wet, and hungry, and we loved every minute of it.
With my father who had no drivers licence we would pack our back packs catch a train into rural Victoria and set up camp on a friendly farmers property, a favorite spot was French Island in Westerport Bay.
To get French Island we had catch two trains and a ferry, then walk 10 kl to a campsite, at that time it seemed perfectly normal to go to all that trouble, these days I doubt most people would go to that much trouble.
I guess it was those early days that set the scene for me, camping, fishing and shooting with my father and friends, I have great admiration for my father who went to a lot of trouble to do outdoor things with me without having a licence, I hope I can have the same impact on my boys.
Now with my own kids who have turned out to be keen on camping, fishing and shooting (no surprises there I guess) its a little easier to get out camping, no more trains, leaking tents and crappy canned food.
For us being away camping lets us interact as a family without all the distractions of our modern society, no TV's or computers (except mine for the Blog etc), lots of quality time spent together enjoying the great outdoors, and the opportunity to learn about our great country's amazing nature and history.
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| Our Home While We Are Away |
Things are a little more comfortable these days with a capable off road camper trailer which folds out into a huge dry living area, access to more amazing places around Australia made possible by having a capable and reliable 4x4, and food that is a good as what we would have at home, maybe even better thanks to camp ovens, and portable BBQ's.
Even the convenience of something as simple long life foods which were not available in the old days has made travel in the outback easier.
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| Camp Oven Cooking |
But we have decided that now is the time to do this big one before the kids get into secondary school when it becomes more difficult to take them out, it took no time to convince the boys, and a little longer to convince the good wife who is now fully on board and working hard to make it happen.
Why the Blog
Well mainly to keep our friends and family up to date with where we are and what we are up to, we have left it open to the public because over the past few years people seem to be interested, I we can help fellow travellers in any small way that would be great.
I know while planning our previous trips I found blogs and forums very helpfull, sometimes you need to get the average persons view on places, they tend to be a little more honest than the brochures.
The photos of places are often like the photos of food at fast food outlets, and are nothing like the real thing, we found that out a few times.
