Two things I learned from this camping trip:

1. Never buy a fakken popup tent that takes one person one minute to pop open but takes one hour for two increasingly frustrated people to fold down. To quote Jeff, “Wrestling a crocodile is easier.” Karma’s a bitch, I suppose. It was his idea, to begin with. Full story here.

2. Find a good hairdresser. I repeat, Find. A. Good. Hairdresser. Because I’m looking at photos of my hair then and I swear to god I would rather wrestle that damn crocodile myself and die with dignity rather than go out looking like I just survived wrestling a crocodile, but barely. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Most of the sentences I’m formulating in my head are a jumble of expletives randomly interspersed with *smh* and *wtf* and *facepalm* in between. Once again, I guess karma does what it does best, for the discounted price of $15.

But that was two years ago.

Yep, if this post was a missed period, the kid would already be a potty-trained toddler by now.

After a bloody cold night on a leaky Kmart airbed where I reckon only Raven slept soundly on because her part of the bed was kept taut by mine and Jeff’s weight on either side of her, it was actually nice to wake up to the sight of sunlight filtering through the trees. The air crisp with the promise of a brand new day. The birds shitting themselves with excitement.

No wonder people put up with the technical difficulties associated with camping. The view is definitely worth it. Nature has a way of making you feel alive by shaking every bone in your body with the cold.

A beating heart is too subliminal.

Like I said in Part 1 of this post, my sister made us the kind of breakfast you’d normally see in fancy cafes — smashed avocado on toast topped with rockets and sliced hard-boiled egg. My cousin, Ruth, had hearts on her eyes just looking at them, swatting our hands as if we were flies so she could take pictures of it for her Instagram.

In all fairness, it was such a pretty breakfast spread to look at. Makes you wanna have one even if you don’t normally eat in the morning. I think it was the plump redness of the tomatoes that did me in.

Leaving the campsite was a bittersweet event. I was bitter that the tent I bought failed spectacularly in its promise of ease of use but all in all, I had good memories of the place and I was sure Raven enjoyed it, as well.

But that’s life, isn’t it? You pack up and move on to somewhere else.

Next up: The Grampians National Park. Photodumping on that next post, whenever that is.

*Raven at 1 year and 11 months old