On A Crafty Adventure: South Canterbury Camping Trip

This past week Dave, Addison and I went camping with two of our good friends Roanna and Stephen. We headed south of Christchurch to Timaru, where we picked up the Chiles family's caravan and headed about 30 minutes inland to a farm on the edge of the Pareora River. The farm is owned by a family friend and Dave's parents have been camping here for years. It is such a beautiful place, a secluded gem of solitude mixed with the occasional farm bike and dogs moving sheep around the paddocks.

It is currently autumn and pretty darn cold, we were hitting 6/7 degree lows overnight which is pretty chilly when you are sleeping in a tent! Thankfully we had the caravan for Addison to sleep in which was probably the best move we made because a) it was warm(er) b) it was enclosed and c) it was sound proof enough that we could still be up late chatting away and she couldn't hear us but we could still hear her when she woke.

We headed down on Monday and stayed until Thursday which was 3 nights and that felt like a long enough stay. There was no running water at the site so we had a chemical toilet and zero showers because the river was freezing! Thanks to the wonders of merino and deodorant we didn't smell too bad but the first hot shower after coming home was bliss.

The campsite has a well-used fire pit which we immediately got to finding and chopping wood. There is also a pizza oven which we tested out and had great success with.

It got dark around 6pm and we let Addison stay up and cook marshmallows with us then put her to bed. The magic of dark nights! It felt way later than it was and I think we ended up heading to bed around 9.30/10 most nights.

We spent the first two evenings hanging by the fire to keep warm but the last night it started raining so we retreated to the semi-enclosed dome tent that Ro & Stephen had brought. We had a Primus gas cooker for most of our cooking and the caravan also has a small gas stove. We had a 20 litre container of water and took some store bought bottled water too after our second container sprung a leak. We also had a chilly bin with a couple of bags of ice to keep our food cold. There was still ice left after 3 days so that seemed to work pretty well.

Menu:

Monday
Dinner - Bacon & Beans with Toast
Tuesday
Breakfast - Bacon, Eggs, Hash Browns, Toast
Lunch - Sandwiches with Salad and Deli Meats
Dinner - Baked Potatoes with Creamed Corn, Bacon and Sour Cream (cooked in the embers of the fire!)
Wednesday
Breakfast - Pancakes, Bacon and Maple Syrup
Lunch - We did a supply run into Timaru to get more water (and chocolate) and had lunch there.
Dinner - Pizza in the pizza oven!
Thursday
Breakfast - Bacon, Eggs, Hash Browns, Toast
Lunch - Instant Noodles

Snacks were fruit, chips, chocolate and s'mores.

We took a plunger and coffee as well as hot chocolate and herbal teas which were on high rotation with the whistling kettle.

While we were camping we did a lot of exploring with Addison. She loved to help us with the general set-up and wood gathering. She got to work finding 'treasure' which were just old beer caps from previous occupants. We threw stones in the river, found some interesting looking ones, talked to the sheep, splashed in puddles and she took Roanna on a bunch of interesting adventures around the campsite. The toys we took to bust out when boredom finally arrived were playdough, bubbles, her dolly and a colouring book. We also had a couple of books for bedtime as well as her duvet, white noise, light lamp and cuddly toy. She quite took to the chemical toilet because it was in its own little tent and was just the right height for her. She was such a trooper in the cold mornings - we had to teach her to put her hands in her pockets and put her in multiple layers of merino to stay warm. She ended up with pretty dry lips so next time I'll make sure we have chapstick with us.

Dave and Stephen took a walk down to the Pareora Dam which was about an hour round trip on an overgrown path. It was a bit far for Addison so we stayed at the campsite with her while the boys went adventuring.

Roanna and Stephen were such awesome camp-mates. They had just spent the weekend camping in the rain at Eastercamp and still managed to be enthusiastic about coming to an unknown spot with the three of us. Addison loved having some extra attention and got quite attached to them. We made a pretty good team and had just the right amount of gear between us to make it an adventure. They didn't even bat an eyelid when the tantrums happened. Thanks guys!

We had so much fun on our trip and despite all my reservations about taking Addison camping, she well and truly proved me wrong and had a great time. We plan to make this a relatively regular occurrence now that we have figured out how it all works. Thanks to the Chiles' for the use of the caravan too!