Mummy Milli

My partner and I are planners who love getting into nature, so getting Monkey camping seemed like the next natural step.

When we originally arrived back in Australia from Canada in 2020 we bought an Estima (Tarago) to convert to a camper. The design we created allowed for one seat to be put in the back and for us to still be able to sleep as a family of three. 

Well now was our first chance to test it out. We were finally taking Cassy the Camper on the road as a family and our motto was ‘how easy can we make this?’ With that in mind we only booked one night and even ate lunch out on the way there – we are Aussie so we got some good pies for lunch from a country bakery. This meant no cooking and cleaning until dinner time, so that we had the time to set up, explore and build a campfire. We also wanted to make this trip as enjoyable for Monkey as possible.

Living in the driest state of Australia we are very used to scrubby and dry campsites, we didn’t realise this when we were organising but this campsite was the opposite. We booked the Rocky Paddock Campsite through Forestry SA and it only cost $20. There were drop toilets, the roads were well kept and there were so many large pine trees, lush grass and gorgeous large boulders to climb and play on. Monkey just loved jumping off the smaller ones. 

Having a minivan meant we could bring some extra items and Monkey just loved that we brought his trike (which he is now slightly too big for and has wheels way too thin to be good on the gravel roads) but he rode and then walked it everywhere he could. He knows he has to wear his helmet whenever he rides bikes or skateboards outside of the house so thankfully there was no fight about it as there were just so much gravel and larger rocks.

In keeping with the motto of ‘how easy can we make this?’ we had a simple, but delicious dinner of cheese kransky’s and salad eaten on a picnic rug. As we weren’t sure how Monkey was going to like the kransky’s we also packed the Yumi’s falafel bites we often eat as they are gluten free and are packed with extra veggies. As most parents know, what is liked one day by a toddler may be hated the next, so we had some extra food for this eventuality.

The difficult part was the sleep, for two reasons. The first being that it was still light out when we normally put Monkey to bed. We do have curtains that we put up and we first tried reading stories in bed but it was too bright and we were in an exciting new space so there was no luck with this approach.

Having planned a back up (like I said we are planners) we got out the old and trusty carrier. Thankfully this Lillebaby carrier is good for up to 20 kilograms, and we are still using it now on walks with Monkey being almost 3. It still took a half hour walk for Monkey to get used to his surroundings and fall asleep.

The second was that while we had planned ahead with Cassy the Camper to have the ability to have a baby seat and sleep in the back, all in the size of a double bed, there was a 20cm gap between the chair and the bed which I fit into beautifully and therefore kept falling in too. 

As we have chickens at home we thought it would be a good idea to have eggs for breakfast but we had forgotten just how much Monkey needed breakfast straight away when he wakes up. The eggs were good but we vowed to only ever have oats – and mostly overnight oats for breakfast while camping so that Monkey has something to eat upon waking up.

Camping trip number 2 will be in a tent, so that we can try to sort out the gap in the bed issue but also as we want to make sure on our 3 week long camping and road trip that we have the best and easiest set up for ourselves.