Our second camping adventure Part 2

Yesterday I told you of our first afternoon camping. We had a good night, our new air beds are great! The only issue was the plink plinking of water still dripping from the trees above. I'd also hoped that they'd turn out some of the "street lights" that illuminated the camp site, but it wasn't to be. It was so bright that we didn't need torches to go to the loo. We were all pretty tired, however, so it didn't take too long to drop off (I stuck a t-shirt over my eyes and was fine). The temperature was perfect, cool enough to enjoy the sleeping bags.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful clear day and enjoyed bacon, eggs and charcoal BBQ toasted muffins. It was delicious. The camp site was much more level than our previous one, so it was less tiring to get around.

Once we'd finished eating and teeth cleaning we headed off for an exploratory hike up the river. Hoping that we'd be able to follow along the river bank. It wasn't to be, however. The river was deeper and had a stronger current than we thought. It also had steep banks on most of its journey. We stopped at a spot close to camp and tossed some rocks, then decided to explore a very vertical track up from the riverside. It went up a fair way, past some abandoned huts that were about to fall off the mountainside to the river below. I tried not to think about what would happen to any of us if we stumbled or fell. Compared to the tracks we climbed two weeks earlier, this was a dangerous goat track with nothing between us and and very steep incline. 

For some reason unknown to anyone, our middle son decided he didn't want to go anywhere except back to camp. He didn't immediately follow us up the track, but stayed on the rocks next to the river. I was hoping he'd change his mind soon and join us, but he is a stubborn lad and could easily derail our exploration. If there was a reason, it was possibly that he didn't like it that we didn't really know where we were going. Uncertainty is an issue for him. But soon he became very certain that he wanted to be with us afterall. He spotted a black snake. I've rarely seen him change his mind so quickly. I'd not be surprised if that weren't a divine intervention, either!

Sleepy village with high electric fences protecting their crops!

Not too long into our climb we found a road. This presented us with a number of options to proceed and none seemed clear. In fact that was the pattern for the next couple of hours. We knew approximately where we were and where we wanted to go, but there just didn't seem to be an optimal route to get there. Following the river was out, the only other option involved going up steep inclines! 

We soon stumbled on a small sleepy village. And, after several mis-turns, we ended up at the riverside again, a little bit upstream. It turned out to be a great place to wade and our boys enjoyed watching two people start a kayak journey down river.

From there we decided to walk back to camp along the road, which, unfortunately was a long way above the river. To get "home" we had to walk up to the road, along it a short way and then down the path we'd arrived on. One bonus of this was being able to pick up one thing we'd accidentally left in the car – the second cricket bat. 

Compare the river level with the road we had to climb back up to to get back to camp, which was at the river level!

On our way back into camp we ran into someone who I know from CAJ. His daughter is in our eldest son's class. He works for Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC - though I think they've recently changed their name). He was at the camp site with a bunch of Tokyo uni students. We were to see more of them later in the day.

Back at the tent we all kind-of collapsed a little bit. Unfortunately the boys ended up being way too silly inside the tent and I sent the 12 y.o. away. He'd set a goal to memorise a few verses for his 1 John memorisation, so I sent him away with his Bible. It turns out he found a great spot to work. He sat next to the river and had some lovely down-time. Not only did he get the verses memorised, he came back recharged after some time alone.

CCC students

After lunch we had some SQUIRT time, reading on our beds (or in his chair, in the case of David) and then headed off to the river again. This time in a more quiet spot close to camp, where the boys could stand waist/thigh deep in the current fairly safely. What made it more fun was that the CCC group beat us there and were having water fights.

It started raining not too long after we'd arrived, but that wasn't too bad because the water was cool enough to be difficult to play in for any length of time. The rain didn't last long and when we got back to the tent we decided to play cricket. Something we ended up doing on and off for the rest of the afternoon! One huge pro for this camp site was having a level open area next to our tent for playing on.

A huge social event was getting the fire going again (something that worked more smoothly this time, David is really getting the hang of it). Whenever the boys got bored, another round of cricket erupted. When that got boring, we taught them French cricket. Occasionally the frisbee, but cricket really reigned over the day.

Dinner was hot dogs (cooked on skewers, so fun!), followed by Doughboys/Twisties (whatever you call them: a dough-type mixture on skewers) and marshmallows. The whole meal took hours to cook and eat. One thing about camping, it is difficult to keep left-overs. And I've realised that I rarely cook just enough for five. I think we usually we have enough for seven-nine people. Anyway, we ended up eating more than we usually would!

After dinner we all went and took our Japanese baths and nearly had the boys in bed when we realised that there was going to be a bonfire in the cleared area. An extra bonus! So the boys came out of the tent and we sat around and watched the live entertainment. It was the CCC group, who played games, then sang and had a short devotional time. Our boys gradually drifted off to bed; leaving David and I with time to sit in the dimness and listen to our Japanese Christian brothers and sisters sing praises to God. It's a wonderful memory.

The next morning we packed up our tent. We'd promised the boys another quick game of cricket, but found that we'd been going slower than we did last time at packing up. Maybe we'd relaxed into camping-time! So, they missed out on that one. 

All the kids must have been quite tired. We had some nasty behaviour during packing-up and the first half of our drive home. Then, mercifully, two of them fell asleep and the other one put away his troubles and sat quietly, humming along to the Lion King soundtrack we had playing. 

It needs to be noted here that very rarely will our 12 y.o. fall asleep during the day these days. But he has done so at the end of both camping trips. Maybe we've got something here? A way to really wear him out? That elusive "something" is what we've been searching for all his life and it becomes more and more elusive as he gets older.

Now we're back. All the camping gear is packed away and we're looking at where our adventures will take us next time. The next window of opportunity is in November, when CAJ has a long weekend for Thanksgiving. It'll be too cool to play in rivers, so what will we do?