Tent Camping

TENT camping is a great way of enjoying a cheap vacation. I don't think you'll find any hotels or motels with prices as cheap as a tent camping park. And as long as you have hot showers and clean comfortable toilet facilities, you'll find sleeping in a tent can be most enjoyable.

I have always loved tent camping... I have been enamoured of sleeping under canvas ever since I was a young Boy Scout at boarding school in the 1960s. The school had a very keen troop of Scouts, and we used to do weekend hike-camps as a patrol of 6 to 8 boys, and week-long standing camps during the school holidays.

The equipment taken along for a standing camp was considerable, because we would get to the camp site by bus and unpack and set up everything. The Troop had 4 patrols, and each patrol had a big heavy canvas wall tents to shelter up to 10 boys. The tent had a ridge pole and a fly sheet as well. They were very sturdy, but had no tent floor. We all had our own individual waterproof ground sheets to lay underneath our sleeping bags. No air beds or hip pads in those days!

After breakfast every day, we would roll up the walls of the tent so the grass underneath could get the light and air. At the end of a two-week camp, the tent areas showed a bit pale, but the grass was not killed. Even the fire places would have their grass sod covering removed first with a spade. this was kept to one side and watered daily. The sods were all replaced and tramped down lightly when we broke camp and cleaned up to go home.

These larger ridge tents were our patrol tents. We had separate shelters to store our kitchen provisions, and a canvas tarp with 6 poles that was erected over the wooden dining table. That way, we could eat our meals in the shade and stay out of the rain. The camp fire and the cook had no such luxury, I remember.

The scout leaders (they were called scout masters back then) had their own outdoor tents, but they would come over to eat meals with us and check our food was up to standard. We cooked it all ourselves over a wood camp fire and did a damn good job. On long camps, we would even cook desserts, such as steamed puddings, served up with lashings of custard. Not bad cooking from 12 to 15 year old boys, cooking for a group using a slow wood trench fire — with billy cans and a type of ex-army Dutch oven we called a 'dixie'.

When back at school, we would often go on Patrol Camps as a group, and sometimes go hiking in twos or threes. For hiking, we would take only minimum gear in a backpack, since we completely on foot and humping the lot on our packs.

Or else we would load up an ancient wooden trek cart — a two wheeled hand cart dating from the Boer War or something like that. We could load our patrol tent and patrol cooking equipment onto that cart and throw on our rucksacks (back packs) as well. The cart was then pulled by two boys on front, with the others either pushing from the rear or pulling ropes from the side to assist the team effort. We might travel 10 miles or even more with that green trek cart. It was hard work but not too hard for we were young and fit then. And once we arrived, we'd have all the camping gear to make ourselves really comfortable in our weekend camp. (These were usually taken over long weekends, where the Monday was a public holiday as well.)

We sure didn't have hot showers back then. We had to wash in cold water, and yes, I hated that part on cold mornings. Trench toilets were dug in the field after the turf had been removed. We squatted across them. We'd have a hessain (sacking) screen around the toilet for privacy, and a water bowl and soap for hand washing was placed just outside the entrance. Since the toilet had no roof, the toilet paper was kept in a box to keep it dry from any rain.

At the end of the camp, the toilet trench would be filled in and the turf carefully replaced. The pit was also marked with sticks in an 'X' pattern This meant soiled ground, a considerate warning to future campers walking in the same meadow later on.