who doesn’t like endless camping photos? day one

I was quite nostalgic for our (3) camping trips of old, so was excited to relive the experience in a bit more of a civilised manner for my birthday getaway. We stayed here and while I wouldn’t strictly call this glamping, there definitely were some luxury elements involved.

The drive there took maybe 4 hours – we broke at Leura for coffee, a stretch and again at Blackheath for the best pie in the world and to swap drivers. Ordinarily I do all of the holiday driving because I tend toward car-sickness, but we tried a new approach and I’m excited to report that I felt perfectly fine while Don was driving! This will make for MUCH better road-trips in the future – driving for hours and hours being absolutely horrid.

The last 12km of the journey were down very well sign-posted dirt roads and we arrived to this:

It all looks super-secluded from the photos and while the tent is located down a long and winding (and bumpy!) track, there are cabins quite close by on either side – luckily our neighbours on both sides were relatively quiet.

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Our very luxe-looking bed. The mattress was incredibly comfortable; the pillows were great – firm, but smooshy; linen crisp and lovely. Having a proper bed was brilliant – even if there was a huge dip in the centre which made for quite a bit of togetherness!

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Now this was unquestionably luxe – wonderful bathroom with really excellent shower! And heated floor!

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View from our giant deck.

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Just off the deck. The river was running pretty low, so the canoe-hire option wasn’t really going to work (quite glad we didn’t pay for that one in advance!)

Despite the low water levels there was a deepish pool right in front of the deck which I was determined to swim in – and did so in the afternoon of day 2. The water was crystal-clear, icy and very refreshing. I paddled about until Don was bitten by a leech while on the bank deliberating whether to join me. That ended my swim pretty quickly. Despite never seeing another leech in all the time we were there, the pool was subsequently referred to as The Leech Pond: “oh look at those ducks in The Leech Pond”, “I’m just going down to The Leech Pond to see the wee fish”.

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The low-brow | the high-brow. I read Clive Cussler | Don reads Murakami.

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Improvised tea pot. I brought the infuser along, but the mugs in the tent were too tiny for it to fit it – thank TheUniverse for the tent’s coffee press.

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Sausages and beans – dinner of champions!

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And a bit of a walk further along the river before settling in for the night.

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We spent a good deal of the holiday reading and tried to extend this to reading in bed – but were attacked by dozens and dozens of flying insects. Those lovely wooden doors at the front of the tent had so many gaps that all manner of creatures entered when there was any light on (this is where a tent with a zip is 70,000x more superior).

After two nights of attempts anti-bug strategies we worked out that we just had to sit in the dark or go to sleep after 7:30pm.

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