Camping stories

Steve, have many stories over the years but the one that comes to mind.
Three years ago the cook and myself were camped up in the Helena Ranges, about 120 kms north of Southern Cross WA.

Mid afternoon the missus put a tray of frozen steaks on the bonnet to defrost. After a huge dinner [ever noticed how you seem to eat better when camping than you do at home] a few drinks and after the fire has died down we hit the hay.

About 1.00 in the morning with a fairly bright moon I got up to have a pee, quitely got out of the tent stood next to the front wheel and came face to face with a 'wolf'. I dont know which of us was the most starteled. The bloody thing bolted and so did I.

In the morning I checked out the bonnet and found paw marks in the dew, the blood from the meat had attracted something.
A fox, dingo or wild dog I'll never know but half asleep and in the moon light I'll settle for a wolf.


Cheers......Lionel.

that trip to the Whitsudays always reminds me that a few days later, I took the other lad out with me for a paddle. There was a bit of a chop getting up and as we approached the headland, I told him to hang back whilst I took a closer look at the conditions out there as the wind was getting up. I came back to him just in time to see him capsize. Now this fella never walks past a mirror without checking himself out (know the type?) so I found it amusing that when I arrived to help him (you normally just exit the cockpit and surface) his lower half was still in the upturned kayak with his body bent almost in a U-shape keeping his head out of the water. I've seen a lot of capsizes but this bugger is the first one I've ever known to capsize without getting his bloody hair wet.

Hi All

Many years ago when we first started camping, we went to Moreton Island with friends, we set up our tents ect and we also erected a common kitchen area under a Fly, with tables in the middle,we packed all our non perishables in cardboard boxes and a few cartons
of beer and wine under the tables, anyway we all went to bed and later on that night we were woken up to this grunting noise, I
got up turned on the torch, and here was this giant wild pig, chewing up the cans of beer and casks of wine, I chased it away and went back to bed, about two hours later it come back again,so I got up grabbed a tent pole and took after it in the dark, here I was running through the sand dunes chasing this pig with a tent pole spear, the next morning we checked the damage and this pig had devoured most of the beer and wine and all of the vegetables,it never came back.

Cheers
Daza

I'll give you a scary things outside your tent .....
In 2007 the family and my in-laws did a trip to Cape York with a group of 5 vehicles. As the in-laws didn't have a lot in the way of camping gear they were shacked up in our 2 room tent. All was well until the toward the end of the trip when I awoke early one morning feeling a bit shabby after a big night on the JD. Bleary eyed and in need of a tree to relieve the bladder I stumbled out of the tent and walked around the other side only to be faced with my mother in-law squatting 3 feet from the tent taking a leak !!! Embarrassing moment for both of us I can assure you but we still have a good laugh about it.

Scary things outside your tent!

Missus and I do a trip to Yerandery the silver mining ghost town. The Missus decides she doesn't like the Police Paddock and wants to camp elsewhere so half a K out of the town I drive in to the bush and set up the tent.

Missus cooks a nice meal and all that stuff and we sit there in the dark sucking a few reds and listening to a wild dog asking for a root.

I take a few steps away from camp to take a slash then she has her turn which requires the use of a torch. (Can someone please tell me why the other sex cannot find their own bums in the dark).

"Oh Darl says she, came and look at these things shining on the ground. What do you think they are garnets or rubies?"

I have a good look and tell her they are the eyes of spiders reflected in the torch light. There must have been hundreds of the suckers.

Anyway the Missus got the chits cause I would not break camp and move back to the Police Paddock.

Ian.

A couple of my mates heard that a dolphin was know to hang around in the evening at a rather remote rocky beech, as it was not far from their camp off they went .Well, they arrived at the beech late afternoon, beautiful calm day and wait on the beech. Sure enough the dolphin shows up so they enter the rather shallow water to swim / frolic with the dolphin. The guys were enthralled - so much so that they didn't realise how long they were in the water and that the tide had come in. Some one had left their car keys etc. in a little bag on the beech, poor guys had to sit in the dark waiting for the tide to go out and then search for their keys etc. in the rather dim moonlight !

.

Funny to read some of those..here is ours

back around 1972 or thereabouts my girlfriend then, to become wife, were camped some k'ms out of the then town of Wittenoon......WA

happily asleep in our swags when from the distance came the unmistakebale sound of a Lion!...yes we have all heard that noise somewhere bewteen a loud grunt and a distinct roar..

Well I tell you we were awake in an instant with the hairs up on the back of opur neck....we knew bloody well we had definately heard a Lion roar...we also both knew perfectly well that we couldn't have! could we???

Just imagine our thoughts...yes we knew one when we heard one...but no it couldnt have been one!...but we heard one..no mistake..

well all quiet for a time and we convinced ourselves that common sense prevails and some sounds from a distance sound different in the night.... eventually drifted off to an uneasy sleep not convinced either way but in the backs of our minds remembering the odd story over the years of big cats "seen" and loose in the WA bush..we have always been sceptical....

I have lived and worked in the bush all my life and know there is nothing out there to be concerned of......girl friend was city born and bred and rapidly adjusting to swagging it and loving it...until about now........

there it was again there was absolutley no doubt whatsoever that was a bloody lion and it was roaring and it was a Lion!!!!!!

distance was hard to tell but that became irrelevant....we slept the rest of the night in the car........throughly confused..common sense saying no it wasnt...but we knew it was....only heard once more that night

SO the outcome??.sleep less night..mind games..and next morning what comes along the track? a travelling circus!!!!!!

I am for ever grateful that they travelled past us and not in the opposite direction to us ..we would never have known..and no doubt contributed to the the big cat theory loose in the outback ...





Well

Scariest noise I ever heard from inside the tent (many years back) was the Ranger's booming voice

"This campsite is a disgrace. If it's not cleaned up in 10 minutes I'm going to fine $50 for every beer can".

Even with a filthy hangover, my mental arithmetic determined that it was time to get out of bed, and quickly.

Jim.