"Oh my God - it's full of stars!"
After a few drinks, we were sitting in the peaceful night, when Sue looked up and said, "Oh my God - look at all the stars!". (Reminiscent of what David Bomwan said in Asimovs "2001: A Space Odyssey"; hence this posts title. :-) )
It was our first night at the Warren River Campsite and I knew instantly why I love camping. Living in a city you end up removed from the simple beauty of nature. Tonight I looked at the stars and it was such a dissapointment to not witness the majesty of them in all their glory. Light pollution and smog blocks your view of the stars. Urban sprawl destroys the natural habitats of native species. People just plain crowd you.
Um, don't get me wrong. I love living in the city and all the benefits that entails. But I need my fix of the bush. At least twice a year or more if I can get it!
We got to the campsite in good time and we had the camp set up within an hour. We then got straight into the relaxing bit of camping. All pictures were taken with my crappy camera phone and resized down to 800x600; please click the pics to see the larger versions...
Over the next couple of days we interspersed our healthy doses of "relaxing" (i.e. beer & wine etc) with things like climbing Mt Chudalup - a huge granite outcrop that dwarves the surrounding scenery. Apparently there is a type of plant there called a "snottygobble". I didn't see one but then again I wasn't looking! This is me at the summit...
We also went for bushwalks along and near the river. The oily stuff on the river you see in the first pic is eucalyptus oil from the surrounding trees seeping into the river...
We also saw lots of native flora and fauna. I went to take a pic of a live dugite (killer snake) that was on the road but he got run over just before I got close enough. I won't post the resultant pic of that...
We also took all this gormet food with us to eat like good quality steak and champagne pate - the sorta stuff everyone takes camping, of course! But do you know what the best meal we had was? Our very own "Secret Recipe" camp stew and damper all made fresh on an open fire...
And all of the above adds up to one thing: HAPPY CAMPERS!!!...
I can't wait until next time!
Cheers!