We are gathered around the dinner table when we decide we can’t wait longer. Bugger the cold. We commit to camping in July. The kids are too happy, and my wife and I can not resist. We have become that-type-of-family.
As the school term closes, the yearning deepens. It becomes a spiritual calling to all of us. Bare feet in grass, no screens, bird song. My wife takes to preparations with military benevolence. We are well-resourced to battle the cold, and I cram everything into the back of the car. The ensuing three-hour drive feels as though we are locked into a hyperbaric chamber, every square inch of negative space clogged with a blanket, air mattress or pillow.
We explode onto the campsite, our car exhaling its entire contents onto the grass. The girls check the rainforest for fairies while my wife and I set up. Campfire pizzas for dinner, which our youngest loudly claims is ‘THE BEST PIZZA EVER’.
At the next lot over is a single father with three teenage children. He has an English accent and is permanently angry. He calls his eldest son an idiot once every half an hour. There is no laughter. The teens slump into camping chairs and browse their phones.
I wake at four-thirty in the morning, too cold to sleep. My eldest joins me, and we set about starting a fire. It takes an hour, but we giggle through it. My wife is ‘master of the flame’, and can start a steady fire in minutes. I am less equipped. But like all good patriarchs, I double down on denial.
‘I think we’re nailing this,’ I repeatedly tell my daughter, as the flame gutters and vanishes to nothing.
‘Dad, we’re not,’ my eldest laughs.
We kayaked that morning down Little Yabba Creek. The surface is unbroken and a perfect mirror to the sky. We venture into the rainforest in the afternoon, find a fig tree older than colonisers. We are better prepared that evening for the cold, and sleep soundly.
Kayaking again the following morning. My wife and I swap children. The youngest is now in a kayak with me, and today we decide to go upstream. My wife effortlessly glides through the water. I do battle with the current in heaving splashes. My wife musters the energy to get close to a fast-flowing mini-waterfall. I try to get there, but can’t, the kayak careens backwards and sideways.
‘I think I’m nailing this,’ I repeatedly tell my youngest daughter, as we spin in lazy circles.
‘Dad, you’re not,’ my youngest sighs.
A good part of the afternoon is spent in a faux-restaurant. My wife and I sit with open books while the girls deliver a series of increasingly convoluted, invisible meals. We go into town for the afternoon (Imbil). My eldest daughter, eight years old, notes the architecture, and we talk about colonial buildings and heritage colours. We go to the small playground and giggle.
We go to the pub for dinner, and the cold beer is sent from God. It’s warmer that evening, but we wake up to rain. We pack up in the rain and mud. We listen to the Wicked soundtrack on the way home. McDonald’s for breakfast. We sit around the plastic table in rapt silence, dirty and bewildered and happy.
Adorable. Love you guys x