Back to Basics

Camping brings life back to basics.
It’s not just sleeping in a tent or cooking outside. It’s learning to live simply, move flexibly, and enjoy whatever comes.

Camping teaches you to enjoy the unexpected.
Like when we pulled into a caravan park at Mon Repos in Queensland without a plan, only to find ourselves next to a national park with a turtle rookery. We stayed for ten days between the nesting and hatching seasons, watching tiny turtles make their first journey to the sea.

Camping stretches your sense of space.
I remember sleeping out under the stars near Uluru, the red dust and wide silence pressing in from every side. No power, no showers—just the spinifex, the endless sky, and the feeling of being very small in a very old land.

Camping reminds you to laugh at yourself.
Like the night we camped below the snow line and I realized—at bedtime—that I’d left my sleeping bag behind. Several layers of clothes and some blankets were enough to get through the freezing night, and we laughed about it afterward.

Camping helps you stay calm when things go wrong.
Once, at Blackheath in NSW, a local driver circled our tent at 1:00 a.m. before speeding away. Another time, a storm with 150 km/h winds hit Wilsons Promontory in Victoria, flattening tents and uprooting trees. We spent the night in the car and helped with the cleanup the next day. It wasn’t easy, but it brought people together.

Camping makes room for quiet beauty.
I remember walking through the Warrumbungles, surrounded by kangaroos resting in the sun. And standing on the edge of Kanangra Walls, looking out over cliffs so sheer and sudden they steal your breath. A friend, afraid of heights, grabbed my arm and joked, “Don’t let me jump.” We stood there laughing, anchored by the view.

Camping strips life back to what matters.
The work of setting up camp, the shared meals, the unknown path ahead—it all reminds you that you don’t need much to be content. Time outdoors brings physical challenge, discovery, and simple connection with the people around you.

I love camping for all these reasons:
For the fun, the risks, the beauty, and the wonder.
Camping isn’t a break from real life.
It’s a way of remembering what life is really about.

Life folds down small:
a tent, a meal, a worn track through grass.
We carry what we need,
and most days, it’s less than we think.

The road surprises—
turtle hatchlings under stars,
kangaroos stretched out like fallen shadows,
storms that tear the night in half.

We forget a sleeping bag,
we lose a trail,
we sit in cars as winds snap trees around us.
Still, the morning comes.

Somewhere between the cliffs and the spinifex,
the fear and the firelight,
we remember:
we are small,
we are strong,
we are here.

Camping teaches nothing new—
only what we always knew,
and forgot:
that life is not made sweeter by control,
but by wonder,
by company,
by simplicity,
by adventure.