For two years in a row I’ve been wanting to go camping with the kids, but somehow I never booked any place early enough, and by the time summer holiday started, obviously all camping sites were fully booked, or ridiculously expensive.
This year however, my sister pointed me to a chain of camping sites of a different flavour: ‘nature campings’. These sites aren’t meant for the regular audience — there are no discos, no bingo nights, no swimming pools… they’re meant for people who want to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature itself. If only I’d known they existed earlier!
Anyway, I do know of them now, and decided that this coming summer holiday I’d go check it out. Most of these camping sites don’t even need booking in advance, so that’s a bonus too.
So, what’s the first and foremost necessity when camping in a country like Holland? Yep, that’s right, a tent. Tents can be rather expensive if you don’t want to settle for the average mini-iglo without any room for your stuff, so I’ve been looking around and comparing sizes and prices. Then, the other day I saw an ad on TV, for a tent exactly like I wanted, for only €49.-. Not wanting to miss that chance, I went to the shop yesterday and bought it straight away. That, plus isolation mats and a gas cooker with refills.
My 6yo had a slightly romantic view on camping: “Why do we need a gas cooker? It’s not like we’re gonna take any pots and pans with us..” On my question why not, he answered that we would just go fishing, and stick the fish on a stick and cook it in a real fire 🙂
Take a pot, and a lid, make a stick screen in your pot, (wedging them in) about 3/4 of the way up, lay your (cleaned) fish across the sticks. add water to pot, cover with lid, place over fire.. steam cooking, with no threat of burning.. and you can cook it as long as you like (till you think its done) enjoy !! (bring spices.. plain old fish is just bland…) you can do this with just about anything. and its really effective 😀