Bob camping 2010

Camping July 2010

This guy visited us and was kind enough to stand still.

Using the ever hopeful, motherly, fantasy reasoning device that most mothers seem to have, Dee booked us into Rathtravor Provincial campground for a few days. CAMP-ground, notice camp is a four letter word and so it has been for me for many years.

With promises of beautiful days relaxing and playing on the beach (?) I relented and on Monday we traveled the just under two hours from Victoria.

First Day.

Of great interest to me and one of my personal selling point for the whole idea, was the chance to drive the Elantra on a road trip. Usually we travel in one of the old usually European jalopies that I have talked Dee into. This devil may care attitude to vehicle purchasing, usually provides an air of uncertainty to the trip. Often culminating - at least once on the way to Shang-ri-la - in hood popping and head scratching on the side of the road.

This time NO! The Hyundai, with the help of a Yakima “Skybox” gotta love the name, was more than capable of carrying the four of us, tent and other stuff for the trip. It is air-conditioned, automatic and has cruise control, or “glide setting” as the kids call it. I think the driver will be superfluous in a few years. I'd have to say the Elantra is a step up on the Mazda 3 we had in Portugal. The cabin is quite quiet – unlike the Mazda - and the engine while rev'y is more than capable at it's task. Downside would be the gearbox, it seems to hesitate a little and even a little unsure of what it would like to do. A small niggle from the guy who usually breaks out into a sweat when the word “Roadtrip” - that's one word, right - is spoken. The tension was also easied by the knowledge that we would have cold wine for dinner. The Elantra has an air conditioned glove box. I kid you not. Perfect for a bottle of wine and two kid drinks. Lets face it if you are going to buy a car, how many advertise that they have a wine cooler for a glove box. Maybe I'm behind the times.

Had lunch in old town Nanaimo, doesn't sound so great but the little meat shop in old town does a great lunch. Then onto Rathtrevor.

Once we got to the campsite we grabbed the tent and pitched it. The tent you should know is one I bought back a few years ago when in a fit of MUST HAVE. I special ordered it from Costco. Why you ask would a guy who hates camping order a tent. Well you see it's one that attaches to the back of your car. So if you have a tail gate – Hint, Citroen DS Safari has one - the tent fits around the back end of the car and becomes part of the whole. On the Elantra Touring there is also such a tailgate and so the kids had their “own room” which they love, and us the tent to sleep in.

It is a rather large tent, we have taken to calling it “The Cathedral”. Before we left we bought a double sized air bed and were worried that it would be too big, until we lay the tent out in the living room, or rather only the two thirds we could lay out on the floor.

Dee in her usual fashion had scoped out the most likely place to provide good eats in Parksville and unlike Portugal the one she picked was open. Bread and Honey is of course a bread shop with many other wonderful delicacies to add to the list. Scones, cup cakes, soups, sandwiches great coffee and a wonderful atmosphere provided not only by the well designed interior but especially by the two women that run this gem.

We then spent time on the beach and Dee and the kids went to the talk put on by the park folks. I did dishes and read. I think maybe, and it may be the euphoria of a full stomach and warm weather that I could do this again. We'll see.

Day two.

Anwen has taken to making reasons up so she gets to pee outside the tent in the “bush”.

She has actually found a spot, we have taken to calling the “peeing tree” and it has become amazing how often she “just has to go now..”. Initially this proved a problem for her clothing, she wants to pee standing up, of course. But over the day she found it was much easier to clothe in a light summer kind of way, “going commando” being one of the main clothing corner stones. The river ran easier when the moment arrived.

Thankfully nobody but us seemed to notice, the pattern.

New pet! Bugger wouldn't get in the car when we went to leave.

Day three.

DON'T get a shared site, unless you know the people you are camping with and they understand the need for sleep.

Our fellow plot sharers came in at about 10:45 and felt the need to leave the engine running and the lights on for about twenty minutes. The other family members who rolled in about 9pm at a site behind ours, decided that the best way to get around the sites - at 10:45pm - was to cut between the pee tree and the tent, a gap of a couple of feet, and got quite snotty when Dee shouted out “who's there and what are you doing”.

John the old guy of the clan came over the next morning and asked if it would be OK if they slip by the tent, by then tempers had calmed, it seemed a kind of apology. Unfortunately for him and the rest, the kids had been up since before 7am and hadn't been told to “quiet down” so some kind of passive aggressive revenge had been taken.

The trip back was uneventful, and unpacking even easier.

Would I do it again? It is odd how loud a tent is, excluding other campers snoring and the wind, the bloody birds seem to have great fun winding up and letting rip asap in the morning.

But yes I'd do it again the kids loved it, Dee loved it, I enjoyed the being out, I just wish we could do it without all the people we don't know.

Jak