Back in October 2022 (feels like a whole lifetime ago) I was supposed to attend school camp with my daughter. Unfortunately days out from leaving for camp we had a major incident at work (one of those "all hands" things that needs all eyes) so I unfortunately had to cancel my leave and swap spots with my wife who went in my place. Fast forward to day 2 of school camp and I get the call to drive out to camp. My daughter was very unwell (turned out to be a nasty chest infection) and needed to go home. To make matters even more challenging my wife had to remain at the school camp because (understandably) the school relies upon a certain ratio of parent-helpers to children.

So here I was feeling like the scum of the earth:

• I had cancelled on attending my daughter's camp
• My daughter was now missing out entirely (for extra context she has missed previous year's school camps due to Covid lock-downs. This was her first!); and
• My daughter was coming home sick with one parent still back at school camp.

With all of this going on, I did what felt like the only right thing at the time. I tried to even out the balance sheet. I promised my daughter that before her next school camp, I would take her camping overnight.

So here we are, 6 months later.

A little more background

Before I get into it, I think it's important to address a few obvious "but why?" questions.

Why did it take until now to go camping, what about the warmer months?

This largely comes back to the nature of the incident we had at work. Without saying anything more specific, the incident we had at work has taken many months to work through and will likely take years to address. Compound this with the fact that my role makes me primarily responsible for addressing the issues and I've managed to be busier than I ever expected. It wasn't until just now (Easter long weekend & the week after Easter) that a sensible opportunity presented itself.

Wait a moment, how old is your daughter? Why didn't she go camping way earlier?

This one comes down to listening. My daughter is something of a free spirit and has a tendency to wander off to follow things that she finds interesting. My wife and I made the decision years ago to wait until we were more confident that she would to a better job of listening and staying safe around cars or water before we introduced her to camping. I stand by that decision.

Getting out there

The getting out was somewhat straight forward. I spent the week watching the weather and saw what looked like the ideal combo 14th of April clear and 15th of April "Rain developing". I can work with that. The first thing to work out was where to go to. I decided upon Mount Franklin Camping Area which is situated in a volcanic crater (wikicamps link here). It's a nice peaceful area that's not too far from home and with tons of clear space between the camp sites for kids to run around. A pretty ideal combo. It's also somewhere I've been before.

Back in 2019

... my mate and I came to Mount Franklin for an overnight camp before his daughter was born. Kind of like a last outing for a few years. We did what many men do.

We made coffee:

We obsessively tended our fire:

We pushed the limits of how hot you can make your coffee:

We also weren't planning to share a tent (mostly due to my snoring) so we opted to sleep in our own coffins:

What I didn't manage to capture in photos was the massive stuff up we made with the weather. The forecast indicated clear skies and unfortunately we believed it. Not only did we believe it, but we didn't pack with the possibility of rain in mind.

• Tarp to throw over the tents for some extra rain isolation? Nope
• Extra waterproof gear? Nope
• Even just something to throw over the firewood we spent the day processing? Nope, nope, nope

So we sat huddled that night by the fire, beer in hand while it rained down on us. We got the fire burning so hot we successfully fought off the rain, the sides of us facing the fire - bone dry, the sides of us facing away - not so dry. During one of the breaks in the the rain we decided to make the dash for our tents (well tent for me, swag for my mate) and call it a night. The unexpected rain kept the temperature well below forecast overnight. To make matters worse my mate discovered his swag had a leak in what I can only think of as the worst way possible - in the middle of the night, in the driving rain, pouring right onto his head. We woke up that morning in March 2019 feeling cold, wet and miserable. With our firewood soaked breakfast was off the cards, but that's where we joined the most important dots of all. Mount Franklin is within stones throw of Hepburn Springs & Daylesford and those places have plenty of great options for a hot breakfast & coffee.

Fast-forward to 2023

... and with rain forcast on the 15th, a location with hot breakfast options was the way to go. I keep my 4x4 half packed at all times so basic tools were already on hand as were seats and a table. Awnings are permanently attached so some shelter from the rain was already sorted. After packing clothes, sleeping gear a tent and some food we hit the road.

Once we arrived

... the first priorities were to get a fire going and set up out little two person tent (this one from Anaconda if you're interested) under the awning.

With those out of the way it was time to settle into some relax. My daughter wasted no time whatsoever finding some birds, then looking them up in her book to identify exactly what they are.

With her inner nature-baby able to just explore and have fun she soon moved on from birds to insects.

While I got the water boiling for dinner she spent the time up a tree. In a way we both had the opportunity to be in our own elements. Can't argue with that!

It was at this moment I realised the first thing I forgot - the marshmallows. Shame, shame, shame.

With the shock realisation I have the memory of a gold fish and forgot to bring frikken' marshmallows to a campfire out of the way, the real shock of the night came at my daughter's bed time. She chose to go to bed.

What? Shut Up! Say that again...

Yes, the child who refuses to go to bed ever. Who at a young age could stay up all night, who fights us every - damn - night - no - matter - what. That child identified it was bed time and chose to go to bed. This has to be the best evidence I've seen to date that our use of artificial lighting - while a massive convenience - is messing with out sleep rhythms. ONE NIGHT of a normal day-night cycle and my daughter identified when it was bed time. I recognise that right now this is a once off and a sample-size of one - so we can't conclude yet, but wow I hope this wasn't an anomaly.

Camp gets quieter

With my daughter in bed and attempting to sleep (real sleep took approximately an hour. Still a massive effort for her) it started to get quiet. Little by little I enjoyed it getting darker:

I found out which neighbors were making all that noise:

And I spent so much time just staring at the stars:

This was where I also where I realised the second thing I forgot to bring. A beer.

The next morning

... even thought it had rained over night and in the early morning we (and our things) were nice and dry (yay to awnings!). With breakfast in mind we packed down quickly but decided to take a little bit of time to enjoy our surrounds.

It feels like no matter where you look around Mount Franklin there's just a splash of colour everywhere.

Unsurprisingly my daughter quickly found a few birds hiding amongst the trees and was busy taking down mental notes of their colouring and features so she can identify them later.

With the concern that it may rain again we decided to jump in the car and head home with a detour to Daylesford for breakfast along the way.

Final thoughts

Overall I mark this down as a massive success and a potential template for future overnight camps to follow. There were a few learnings along the way:

• Make sure marshmallows and a beer make it onto the packing list.
• While my shoes didn't get wet under the awning, they easily could have if the wind had been stronger. Next time I'll bring a tub for them.
• My camp lantern (BLF LT1) was awesome out in the field, but I could have done with extra. I've since ordered 2x BLF LT1 Minis for next time.

But all the above are just minor tweaks. This is a trip that I loved and so did my daughter and I hope to repeat and build upon it.