For this simple overnight trip, we’d been invited to go camping by some friends. We ended up at Micalong Creek at the Wee Jasper Reserves, which is probably our most visited campsite ever.
That week I’d rotated all the tyres which made a huge difference to the in-cabin road noise on the way there. We could actually hear each other this trip which was a big change. After the recent rain in spring and summer the roads to Wee Jasper aren’t in the best condition. Lots of pot holes and damaged tarmac to watch out for. It takes us about 90 minutes to get to Micalong Creek from our house and it’s a winding and twisting road.
The van was simple to set up compared to the last big trip we’d done. Wee Jasper campsites have a ridiculous annual blanket ban on fires from 1 Dec to 1 April. Seems a bit redundant given how lush and green the campsites are after La Nina. It does free up a lot of room when you don’t need to take the firepit or firewood though.
The dirt road between Billy Grace Reserve and Micalong Creek was really badly rutted. I’m glad we had the extra ground clearance and lift in the van – I think some of the 2wd cars at camp had a very hard time getting back up that road.
We arrived and found our friends in what’s becoming our usual spot next to the creek. They’d already set up the night before so we found a cramped spot between them and their neighbours and forced our way in. The tent didn’t take long to set up and we could enjoy the first sunny weekend we’d experienced in what seemed like months.
The Triple J Hottest 100 was on that day, but no one had a radio. I don’t even think I bothered hooking up the van antenna when I installed its latest stereo. We had about an hour of success in streaming the radio through a weak phone connection, but that failed and we were left without a live stream to listen to. After several beers and a dip in the creek, we heard a group nearby that were listening to the radio broadcast and I managed to invite ourselves into their party, at least for the last 10 songs. They turned out to be a great bunch of young lawyers that were very friendly and welcoming when us old folks and a couple of young kids crashed their group.
I wasn’t in any state to cook by that stage, but Rosie managed to put together some of the best nachos we’ve ever had. Ollie eventually went down much later than the other kids after watching a full movie on my phone (forgot the tablet) and we sat around until 12 or so drinking in the relatively nice weather and solving the worlds problems.
The next morning was an early wake up because of Ollie. He’d managed to sleep on mum’s mattress most of the night. I was a little dusty. Bacon and egg wraps for breakfast, then some quiet, slow packing up and a final sit in the creek for Rosie and Ollie.
The only change from our normal camping routine was that we used our regular milk warmer/frother on the inverter, which worked really well. It probably strained the battery more than anything else we’ve had plugged into the vans electrical system, but everything held up really well and we got to use it twice as our friends battery had run out of juice the night before. Rosie is adamant that this accessory will become a standard part of camping from now on.
The drive home was fairly uneventful and we got back home around 1.30pm. All up a great weekend away, but we agreed that two nights would have been even better. Big thanks to our friends for inviting us along on a great little overnight trip.
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