As I was trying to paint the outside of the house in the howling wind today, my mind wandered back, as it does when the body is involved in mind numbing activities, to the trials of camping in the wind.
One particular event that came to mind was an evening in the delightful hamlet of Waratah in the Northwest of Tasmania. We arrived and the air was still. I pitched the tent but being lazy and seeing that the wind was absent I thought I would dispense with the extra guy ropes. We slept well for most of that night until a Bass Strait gale decided to descend at about 5:30 a.m. We were shocked into alertness when the staves of the tent started bending inwards at an alarming angle and the tent thought it was a plane on a runway preparing for take off.
Camping on a quieter occasion
Scrambling out of our sleeping bags, my wife and I tried to get dressed but we had to do so with our posteriors pushed against the bucking and bending staves to stop them from snapping. After having made ourselves presentable for the outside world under extreme circumstances, we packed our gear and started dismantling the tent. But I was too eager in my removal of the pegs with the consequence that the tent then decided it wanted to fly to Antarctica. In desperation I picked up the nearest weighty object at hand and threw it on the flailing tent – this happened to be the love of my life. While she was spread-eagled on the angry tent I tried to roll it up underneath her.
Surprisingly, I accomplished this, and kept the marriage intact – which was good, as we still had many hours together in the car to manage that day.
Moral: In the future prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Travels from Ur 