Easter weekend

Full on. I'm only now coming up for air, a few days back into work and things are settling down. It's still an adventure without a car. I tell ya what, does wonders for your calf muscles! Might have the beast back soon.

Was desperate to try out the new tent and sleeping bag so I went down to Deep Creek with Jon. It was only a one-night escape even though I would have loved it to have been longer. It's hard just on the edge of fire ban season, especially when it's social camping where you just want to lounge around near a fire and cook stuff and chat.

After a 1½ walk down to the waterfall there (was surprised to see running water) we hopped back into the car to find our campsite. Deep Creek Conservation Park was like a refuge camp. All the camping sites were taken and being the fragile environment that South Australia is we had to move on, no exciting camping in any scrub.

We tried Rapid Bay but that was full too. It was really nice down there actually. There were heaps of people out on a glorious Saturday afternoon - walking dogs, fishing, chasing each other round, getting pissed with t-shirt turbans atop heads, people trying to find campsites...

Ended up in good ol Kuitpo forest, although this time were camped Rocky Creek campground near Jupiter Creek. It wasn't half bad! The place where we pitched the tents was softer that usual, with fallen pine needles as a thin layer of natural cushioning. Had to soccer punt quite a few roo droppings out the way though, and Rocky Creek was a slight depression in the ground, which would have been mayhem if there was any water in it.

Jon and I spent the hours after nightfall (total fire ban til April 30) seeing if we could get a spark or even a tiny bit of smoke from one of the bushcraft techniques. We were trying the fire plough method, where a hard stick in rubbed down a hard wooden trough to create fine powder which when hot enough creates embers. It was even funnier cos apart from the amount of exertion it took we also wanted a few more details so Jon, finding he had 1 bar of reception on his 3G work phone, tried to look something up on Wikipedia. It was pretty funny, you gotta laugh at yourself being stupid white guys. We will make fire! Ooooga boooga.

The new tent was sweet. I used it as a one person, my intention all along, and Jon used another 2 person tent I had stashed in the laundry. The outer fly doesn't quite go all the way to the ground and the inner is made of fly screen, not that thin cotton like material most tents have. So you feel pretty out there and it's nice to have a bit of a breeze. Ventilation won't be a problem as far as I can see, perhaps on really hot summer nights it might be a different story.

Sleeping bag held up. I was using a new Roman 500 down filled 3 season bag. My favourite bit was the inner draw-string you can bring the top of the bag tight around your shoulders. I can see me and the bag being very good friends. Until next time!