We recently went outback camping. And it was REAL CAMPING IN THE BUSH.
There was no running water. No toilets. No showers.
So when we needed TO GO… we had to pick up our tools… walk off into the bush… find an unused spot… and dig our own hole.
It wasn’t exactly glamourous.
It was a bit eew.
Especially when the flies didn’t leave you alone.
The other annoying thing about outback camping was… bathing.
(Actually the bathing part was tolerable. It was the fact that none of the boys/men thought it was necessary to bathe at all, which irritated me!)
Since we had to bring our own water to the camp… water was precious. For drinking, cooking and cleaning. So cleaning our bodies with the precious water was considered a luxury.
We were very fortunate that there were several pools of fresh water that we could use nearby.
We knew that the water was clean and uncontaminated, because there were 8 DIFFERENT KINDS OF WATER BUGS LIVING HAPPILY IN THE POND!
There were creatures that looked like beetles, transparent sluggy things, tadpoles, teeny tiny swimming ticks. Eeeew!
So if any of you are NOT familiar with pond water washing, let me fill you in.
First you have to (1) splash water on yourself, (2) soap up your body and hair, (3) scoop up a container full of water, (4) walk AWAY from the pond… (5) then pour the water over yourself to wash… so that the soapy water does not flow back into the pond.
Oh you also have to CLOSE YOUR EYES, so you don’t see any water creatures you’ve scooped up in your container of water!!
I went to bathe with a few other women.
We were not completely nude. We were not frolicking in the pool like water nymphs with flowers in our hair. And we did not stand on the top of the hill in our naked glory shouting HELLO WORLD!
We were in our swimsuits and I had a sarong. It was very civilised.
It was lovely and refreshing to be clean and to smell clean while bush camping.
Unlike the boys and men… who stunk to the high heavens. No wonder we had a fly problem!
