Rough camping
2 comments April 4th, 2005
After nearly eight months of walking – admittedly interspersed with regular long, blissfully indulgent, rest periods – I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make.
And, given our intended route, it is no minor obstacle: I remain pathetically, abjectly, and most inconveniently, terrified of rough camping.
There. That’s it – I’ve finally ‘fessed up. Do I feel any better for unburdening myself? Not bloody likely. I am sure this latest blog entry will inspire a deluge of superior sniffing emails from all you hardy, serial Appalachian Trail and Camino rambler types out there. Surely I should have thought about all of this before, I hear you say; surely I must have foreseen there would be a lot of rough camping ahead.
And, look, you’re dead right. I have no defence to offer at all. Except that rabid though my fears may be, we continue to spend the vast majority of our nights rough camping anyway.
I never used to be like this. Years ago I camped all the time, and sometimes on my own. Sure, the night noises were a little spooky at first, but mostly they were just the usual comforting bush sounds; after an hour of listening closely I could hear them being repeated, and would relax into sleep knowing there was nothing more fearsome out there than the odd hungry possum.
But that is back in one’s own country, in a familiar environment, where all of the sounds are known or at least vaguely remembered. Not in a different environment every single night, where the habitat changes as often as the temperature, and a rough camp can mean anything from the glorious, peaceful bliss of a remote mountain lakeside, to the backyard of a deserted old house next to a motorway.
This last couple of weeks we have walked inland through the beautiful country of Alentejo, cutting off the south western part of the coastline. We decided on the change in route mainly because there were few alternatives to the busy national route heading southwards, from which we found ourselves having to continuously walk three kilometres at the end of each day to reach the beachside campsites. Day in and day out, doing an extra six kilometres in addition to our normal 20-25 was exhausting and counterproductive; but as there are few settlements along the road itself, it was necessary in order to stock up on food and water. In the end we decided that the inland route would offer quieter roads and more interesting walking, even if there were no campgrounds until we hit the South coast.
We have had little trouble finding places to camp in Portugal; it is a peaceful, relatively sparsely populated little country, with loads of farms and scrubland. But the difference between rough camping in one’s own country, and in a foreign one, is the difficulty in establishing what is parkland, what is farm, and what is deserted. As we discovered to our surprise during our late night encounter with the gun wielding police several weeks ago.
Another problem for us here is our lack of language – a problem I am well aware is our own fault – but which is in stark contrast to France, where we could at least ask to camp at farms without any fear of miscommunication. Many Portuguese speak either French or English, and in many cases both; but they aren’t farmers. And often by the time we are ready to camp we are simply to tired to try to go through the effort of trying to explain our situation to a farmer in pidgin Portuguese and sign language. It is also, I admit, partially due to the fact that often after we have spoken to someone, and been told we can camp, they most generously want to stay and offer us further hospitality in the way of food and conversation; but at the risk of sounding heinously selfish, sometimes after many days walking long distances and camping, all we want to do is eat a sandwich and collapse in the tent before the next day. We both love meeting and talking to people, but it’s really tough when you are exhausted and being talked at, by an entire family, in a foreign language, for hours on end. So sometimes we find ourselves being cowardly and looking for somewhere we can just throw the tent up and get a good night’s sleep.
Which is where my fears begin to rear their ugly head.
There are three recent examples I can think of, offhand, which demonstrate the varied experiences we have rough camping.
The first occurred one night after a really long day – we had done about 35km and it was particularly hot. For the last 10km there had been open fields with no farmhouses in sight and private property signs, so it was with relief that we saw a crumbling old stone wall partly enclosing an old olive grove just off the road. We were on the outskirts of a settlement and the clearing seemed to be the little used back end of a larger farm we could see some fields away on the hill. We headed in to scout about for a place to put up the tent, and were suddenly startled by a shepherd bringing his flock straight 
through the enclosure. He was a lovely old man, and assured us it was fine to camp there for the night – by his manner we assumed he was the farm owner – so we settled in, content to know we were camping with permission.
Now by the time we set up, cook dinner, peruse the maps and have a splash bath, we’re both usually ready for bed; sadly we are frequently tucked up by eight thirty. And Gary, bless his innocent little heart, is generally sound asleep by eight thirty five.
Unfortunately my relationship with insomnia is a close, long standing one, and I find myself awake for somewhat longer. 
Which is when my rather over active imagination begins to flex it’s little muscles.
What if Lovely Smiley Shepherd Man is really Dark and Sinister Serial Killer Man? Or worse, what if he went for a drink at the bar and mentioned us idly in conversation, and Dark Sinister Serial Killer Man, lurking menacingly in the corner, decided to come looking for us? What if that clear owl call out there is no such thing, but is really one DSSKM whistling to his partner in crime?
By now my breathing is shallow, chances of sleep incredibly minute, and every sense on wide alert. Which is when I hear voices passing within metres of the tent. Gary remains snoring soundly by my side – he always says he’d wake up at the first hint of danger but, frankly, I don’t buy it – and I am too scared to wake him in case the voices hear me. Suddenly the voices hush, and for long minutes I can’t work out whether they have hushed because they intend to make a sudden break into the tent, or if they are simply being quiet out of respect for our sleep. Eventually I will get so fed up with speculating I get up to go and look, and of course there is no-one there. Imaginary foes vanquished, I return to bed determined to sleep – but by now my chances are not good.
Gary wakes up at this point.
“Are you still awake?”
“Of course I’m still bloody awake. Two blokes just walked past the tent and you didn’t even hear them. Someone has to be awake.”
“So what? There’s a track up there, they were probably on their way home from the pub.”
“How do you know that? What if they’re still out there somewhere waiting for us to go to sleep?”
Gary gives a long suffering sigh: “I seriously doubt that is the case.”
“Well, don’t you think we should have a look and check?”
“By ‘we’, I suppose you mean ‘me’?”
“Well I already looked once. It’s your turn.”
“I am not going to get out of my nice warm sleeping bag just to check whether or not your bogeymen are there. I’m sure if they plan to murder us in our beds we’ll hear them coming.”
We lie in silence for a while, and then I hear Gary start breathing deeply again and I get really frustrated.
“Right, that’s it, I’m going out with the torch to have a good look,” I say with great resolution.
Gary heaves another of those sighs: “Whatever.”
I get out of the tent and have a good scout around. By now it is really late, and of course once I am out of the tent all seems calm and peaceful and perfectly normal. There are no serial killers in sight.
“So, did you kill all the monsters and vanquish the demons?” he asks me sleepily as I return to bed.
“ha ha,” I say grumpily, and try to go to sleep.
Which I don’t, really, all night, lying with one ear open the entire time.
The next night I am determined to find a good camp; in the end we 
do, a sheltered outcrop on a hill by a beautiful lake, where we have a great swim and wash, and I sleep like a baby. We are miles away from anything that night, off a quiet mountain road, and I am not worried about being disturbed. All my faith is restored.
But the following day is a return to my customary cowardly form.
We walked down a motorway for the last fifteen kilometres and are both exhausted. There is nothing remotely inviting about the dense eucalypt scrub on either side of the road, so when we finally see a pretty little farmhouse we turn off down the driveway to ask if we can camp.
Except there is no-one there.
“But I don’t get it,” I say to Gary. “There is a chook inside the door, which is padlocked – someone must be coming here to feed it. There are fresh tyre prints on the drive, and the water is still turned on. Someone must live here.”
“But the windows are all boarded up,” he argues, “and the place is obviously in ruins. The chook could have climbed in through the roof. And there is another house up on the hill – maybe they use this as the entrance.”
“I don’t know,” I say uneasily.
“Look. Why don’t we just camp here, and down the bottom where it is sheltered and out of sight, and then if anyone drives down we can always ask them if it is ok? I’m sure no-one will mind. It’s not like we’re criminals or anything.” Gary is already unpacking.
I walk up to the door and rap on it, just to check. To my absolute astonishment and Gary’s major amusement, a sharp rapping comes back from the other side; I jump about fifty metres in the air, shriek, and say: “I told you! There’s something in there.”
“ I know there’s something in there. It’s a bloody chook,” Gary says, killing himself laughing at my expense. “You probably scared it half to death.”
“How do you KNOW it’s a chook?” I say. “What if it’s a dangerous insane psycopath locked up by his even madder family? What if he gets out at night? What if they lock him in there to keep him away from people? The thing is, YOU DON’T KNOW.”
I keep going in this vein for some time. You get the picture.
Grumpily I set up the cooking stuff and get to it. There is a plastic bag hanging off one of the orange trees; every time it rustles in the wind I leap three feet in the air, convinced the madman is on the loose.
In actual fact the camp is so peaceful that I end up sleeping really well. But nonetheless, every time I roll over I wake up and cast and ear about, terrified I have missed something.
“I wonder how the madman is this morning,” says my dearly beloved as we pack up the following day. “Did you need to knife him during the night?” I give him my best disdainful stare and ignore his snickering as I pack up.
Like I said, it’s utterly pathetic. I love camping, love the smells and stars and the way everything tastes good when you eat it outside after a long day. I couldn’t care less about the lack of hot water – or, indeed, often any water at all – or the fact that we our packs are several kilos heavier because we have to carry so much water and food. And worst of all, I know that if I was in Australia, I wouldn’t be remotely concerned about the bogeymen. I think that at home, everything just seems that much more safe and familiar, which is completely irrational – as if there was any more likelihood of serial killers roaming around Portugal than the outback. But nevertheless. Irrational, childish, and pathetic as it may be, I remain a total Nervous Nellie when it comes to rough camping.
I know, I know. I’d never cut it on the Appalachian Trail.