A FALL INTO EDEN
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KID’S CAMP
“Can we go camping, Granddad?” implored my impish grandsons upon my return from yet another trip. Two sets of luminescent eyes beamed at me like lapis lazuli. At five, Jasper could not remember last time he slept out in the bush. Nor could he recall much of his own garrulous past behaviour, the memory of which puts me on red alert whenever we are near water together. Liam, his athletic eight year old brother, knew exactly why we should sleep in a tent. “We really, really want to do it,” he cooed, “because we have to make a fire, and that means we can toast marshmallows.
SO, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE TENT….
“Marshmallows, really? They’re just sugar and colour, you know.” (As if they care!)
“Yeah,” Jasper interrupted, bouncing on my knee in feverish anticipation. “We woast them on a stick and fwow them in our mouth.” He cast me a look of such debilitating cuteness that my heart was rendered into a gooey mess, and the camping trip became a fait accomplis.
TOO LONG SINCE I CAMPED
With a smattering of gear, a borrowed car, and food enough to nourish an army, we made off for the shady shores of Station Creek, a remote coastal camping ground in a national park 500km north of Sydney.
You have to hand it to the winters in this part of the world. Sure the nights were nippy, but the blue sky days brought warmth, colour and vitality to the estuarine wilderness. Even I could wade across the river without complaint, and the boys splashed around like whales until the afternoon chill struck them with the shivers.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Just below the campground, a sturdy timber wharf juts out into a pristine lagoon, ideal for watching the ceaseless action of nature in motion. At the ebb of tide, a murky tannin-soaked river pours forth from the spooky tea-tree swamp upstream, flanked by wide, ripple sculptured sandbanks. This habitat, which the boys refer to as The Island, provides a homeland to armies of soldier crabs, as well as myriad other creatures who feast on their crunchy bodies.
The jetty is provided with a railing, presumably designed to prevent small children from plummeting off the edge, and into the oyster-infested waters below. The top rail was built disconcertingly wide, tempting the adventurous child to try and balance, while the middle beam was both high enough for a boy to slip underneath, and low enough to act as a rung for climbing to the top. Within moments of our arrival, I caught Jasper teetering on the handrail, just like the time he played Superman off the back veranda, earning himself six weeks in traction.
THE EBB AND THE FLOW
As the high tide surged through a maze of filtering dunes, the waterhole filled with water as clear as an Alpine stream, revealing a secret aquatic world, abundant with myriad life.
TOADY THE TOADFISH
“This one is poisonous,” I announced, pointing to a tiny toadfish which pulled the bread off a fisherman’s hook every time he tried to target a school of bream. Although he is so fond of noxious creatures that he was once ejected from day-care for sucking a cane toad, Jasper took an instant dislike to the fish.
“Don’t let Toady eat it!” he screamed, swiping at the fishing rod, seeking to deny his nemesis a free meal. With his balance askew, he slipped between the rails and tumbled flailing into the drink, fully rugged up in his winter woollies. He clambered out, howling like a demon.
“What is it Jasper? Where are you hurt?” Jasper rarely cries from pain.
He drew me in with his gaze, a deeply forlorn look on his transparent face. “I was naughty and I’m going to lose my marshmallows,” he moaned.
