I have never really been camping.
There I said it. I have tried, oh yes. When I was 18 I went over to Canada with my then boyfriend. We had planned to camp a few nights in The Rockies. My thoughts? I hated it. It was really cold. We were sleeping on extremely thin mats and I don’t think I had a wink of sleep all night. Cue a lot of tears and we ended up getting a B and B for a few nights. Oops.
I think the issue is I was never taken as a child and really never experienced what the fun part of camping was like. I don’t know what to pack. Do we need camping knives? Do we need to take a blow up bed? I’m told by friends how much of a laugh it is. Being with nature. Staying up late in the warmer weather and chatting outdoors. Cooking in the open air and being with family and friends. It all sounds like great fun but still something I’ve not experienced as an adult. And honestly? I am still a bit nervous.
The blog quite often encourages me to try new things and pushes me out of my comfort zone, so when we were offered some camping goodies from Blacks and Millets, I thought why not? We were going to try and take part in the Wild Night Out 2018, which was on Saturday 30th June. This was basically to spend a night under the stars (in our back garden!). We decided to accept the challenge.
We do have zero camping gear so needed to have a think about tents! I know I would want quite a spacious tent and we were kindly sent a 5 man version – The Eurohike Cairns 5 Man Deluxe Tent 5.
It is great, as I can stand up in it and didn’t take my hubby long to put up on the warm Saturday afternoon.
The girls were not left out either and had a chance to sample some Eurohike Sleeping bags and were sent a Eurohike Adventure Youth 200 Sleeping Bag in blue and a Eurohike Adventure Youth Sleeping bag, in red.
We were also sent some roll mats to sleep on.
It was fab spending the whole of the afternoon and early evening outdoors. The girls loved playing in the tent and getting involved sorting out the camping gear.
So how did we get on?
I would love to say we managed to camp outside all night but we didn’t. We did however, have a lot of fun in the garden and both the girls stayed up later. You can see a little more on the short video below.
The gremlin was just a little bit too nervous to stay out all night, which makes me think we definitely need to take her camping properly. It’s a little too easy when in your back garden to be able to walk back into the house and have all your home comforts. I think this is exactly what happened with my eldest!
This experience has made us realise we definitely need to take ourselves into the real great outdoors and have a go at the real thing! I have a friend who is hoping we go with them, so let’s see!
When we do, I’ll let you know.