My Polyester Chrysalis

Welcome To Camp
I feel the stirrings of nausea. The gentle pull of a tide slowly rising, taking over my limbs, making the insides of my mouth start to melt like buttery pastry. I shove the foaming head of my toothbrush, filled with a paste that stings like staples on my gums, down the back of my throat and alleviate myself of the simple camp dinner I thought nothing odd of at the time of consuming.

Standing out here, next to the barbed-wire stock fence that separates my now weakened state from the encumbering bush above me, I didn’t anticipate bringing my dinner back up. Didn’t anticipate feeling any particular way aside from happy that my belly would now be full from a hot meal cooked on the campfire for the first night of camp.

I retreat to the camp chair inside the warm tent and wonder if this is the stirrings of some greater illness—a bug harbouring in my precious bacteria, making a comfortable home in my sacred gut. I ponder if bugs and parasites time their appearances, only showing up when you don’t have the luxury of running water or a comfortable porcelain hole to relieve oneself. I allow my thoughts to wander through what the next 12 hours of darkness could entail but rather quickly wrap things up, feeling better just having rested with my eyes closed for a few minutes.

Bye Bye Nausea, Hello Cripple
My absolute favourite, no doubt in the world, thing about camping is the lack of knowing where the hands on the clock sit. Food is prepared and dished when one is hungry, fires are lit when the sun swings west, and dew starts to settle in the evening, bird song wakes you violently through the thin skin of your tent, and all is well with the world.

I inch out of my sleeping bag, crunchy as a premature butterfly emerging from a warm and safe chrysalis, with a full bladder and a lower back that, regardless of how I twist, feels like each of the vertebrae has been glued together with rough textured cement. Despite my crippled state, the dogs are charged, having slept comfortably for their first night in a tent, and have awoken with the energy of a newborn lamb on a sunny spring day. I, on the other hand, am free with no trace of nausea, yet now wish I could peel off my skin and the tissue that glues it all together, to hurl myself a tree in hopes that’ll straighten me out.

With my eyes heavy and the toes of my socks wet through the sandals I slipped on, I find my patch of land to soothe my full bladder and let the pink sky wash over my face. Let the fast-running creek hidden in the close distance move closer, let the rustle of the towering gums grow taller, watch a stunning red-breasted robin, dancing alone from one branch to another. Yet he is not alone, far from it, and nor am I.

Toying With Fire
We position the firepit at a safe distance from the tent to avoid any sparks settling on our abode, creating a skylight we never ordered. The day has been warm despite still being the thick of winter, causing me to remove my jacket multiple times to avoid building a sweat. I have a slight natural odour occurring but nothing one who has been living with the elements can avoid, nor should they be afraid of.

Tonight’s menu includes potatoes and damper with butter and salt, prepared on the open fire. Both the potatoes and damper are predicted to have a very low success rate given the unpredictable nature of our kitchen, with no back-up feed on hand. If all turns to charred, inedible coal, there are a plethora of sticks for marshmallows and scotch finger biscuits to at least line the stomach temporarily as we fall asleep. I can’t say I would be chuffed if it came to that, considering last night my dinner hardly made it past my oesophagus.

What has seemed like hours into rotating the foil-wrapped packages of spuds, we finally have winners, and every single last one of them too. Exquisitely chargrilled, I woof mine hot in my swamp-sized hybrid bowl-mug, with a plethora of golden butter on top, using a soup spoon to cut and devour every last skerrick.

Homeward Bound
Yesterday, dawn was a blotchy shade of youthful pink, and today, not so endearing, a thick plaster of grey bringing with it spits and sprays of gentle rain, and of course it would be, on the day we are to pack and leave. On the bright side, thankfully, we adjusted our sleeping positions last night, and I slept, deep and sound like a pebble at the bottom of a river. Call me ludicrous, but I’d have rather had a good sleep and pack up in the wet than have woken again to a makeshift spine and a clear sky.

I heat a cup of water on the indoor stove and boil eggs for unfortunately, not quite long enough. Cooked? Yes. But runny and awkward to consume on your knees in a tent using bread that’s too dry to sop it up well enough? Also yes. You don’t realise the luxury of warm running water on tap until you need to clean dried egg yolk from the back of your hand with a bit of spit and elbow grease.

Gradually, we manage to get the inside kit back into the car with little contact to the rain, but I’ve learnt that camping is as much a test of succumbing to the elements as it is to relax. If you can accept you’ll have to dry things out for days once you get home, you’re more likely to have a good time than if you try to fight it. Once loaded, we peel out, the spot where our temporary home stood so happily now empty in the rear-view mirror. I’m at a loss for the time and can’t quite put my finger on what day it is; signs of a few days well spent.