Camping: Fun As a Function of Facilities

Nicole's cousin Josie came to visit last week, and we decided to go camping.

Avoiding the Easter rush, we pre-empted the exodus by a week. Nicole did a trawl of pet-friendly campsites on the internet and came up with Brooyar or Amamoor; Amamoor's access road had been cut off by the floods and was still incommunicado, so Brooyar it was.

Brooyar State Forest is up near Gympie, a few hours drive North of Brisbane. With an extra body in the car packing was a slight issue-ette so we downgraded our self-inflating mattress for yoga mats, and didn't worry about the duvets, settling for just plain old sleeping bags.

We were considering leaving the table behind but opted to leave that in, but I selflessly packed just the one change of clothes... plus a couple of extras, just in case of rain.

Still with all the optimisation things were still a bit of a squeeze but we made it up to Gympie where we stalled a while trying to find a place to sell firewood.... unsuccessfully.

Putting this pyro-Slimm-disaster to one side we headed off for the campsite and it turned out it wasn't too far out of town, up the Wide Bay Highway then a turn off.

At the end of the sealed road there was a Hallelujah Moment as the last Homely Homestead had firewood for sale. Deep Joy.

Then onto the gravel road, which wound its way into the forest. There were a few washouts and we began to realise the low-riding Mazda 3 once again is not the best for off-tarmac road war as unpleasant noises came from underneath while traversing with great care the washouts and ruts.

But eventually after 10km or so we arrived at the legendary camp site and headed for the facilities, which consisted of some composting toilets.

The tent went up without too much drama and as the sun went down the campfire went up and a glorious repast was served.

The camp site was nestled by Glastonbury Creek in a forested valley. A track led further into the hills and in the morning we headed up it.

Nicole wasn't too well, with a migraine, so she stayed behind to sleep it off, whilst the rest of us inched our way up the muddy track, eventually discovering a hiking trail that led up through a forest of grass trees and gums, across the ridge and back down to the campsite.

As we got back to the tent, the clouds started to roll in.

We played cards and read books for the rest of the day, relaxing. There was the occasional shower.

As the fire went up, the rain came down.