Snippets from our camping trip last weekend

Last Friday we went camping for three nights with another family with three boys. Yes, that's right, six teenage boys for three nights (well actually our eldest is now 20, but...). By another almost accidental connection on Facebook, our pastor gave us access to a cabin he and his wife look after for a friend of theirs. You'll see later why that made a huge difference to our weekend.

From the start it was a bit complicated because our friends don't have a car or licences, so we borrowed another eight-seater van from other friends. Both "dads" had to work part of Friday at school, so the plan was for the mums and boys to leave early and set up what we could, with the dads following with the rest of the gear. Oh, and just to make things "worse" I decided that it would be fun to stop at Costco on the way (it was truly not out of our way to do this) and get a few supplies for our long weekend.

We had the usual sort of fun navigating with Google Maps, but got there in good time, though only beat the dads by an hour or so. In that hour, though, we managed to meet both the resident neighbours (there were several currently unoccupied houses nearby), clean up the cabin (including what seemed like hundreds of large, mostly dead ants), and get our two tents erected.

Here are some photos:

Such greeness can't be ignored by an Australian. We tried to explain to our
north American friends that the predominant green in our land is quite different
to what you find practically every time you leave any city at this time of year in Japan. 

Interesting fungi too. Yes, we planned a trip in the middle of a particularly wet rainy season.

Just down the hill was this little stream.

The view on our first day and second days. Actually in this case the cloud is hiding an ugly quarry that covers a lot of the side of this mountain across the valley. 

A bit to the right of the above photo, looking down towards the township of Chichibu (only about 50 km from our home in Tokyo).

Looking down at the tents from the cabin.

Looking back up at the cabin before the boys put the tents up.

Meeting the neighbours was an experience. Our pastor had told them we were coming, but I think there was a few more of us than they'd expected. I also don't think they had had much experience with campers...they wondered if we had any food with us! Town was about 10-15 minutes down a very windy road, so yes, we had lots of food with us. However, they brought this beautiful platter with freshly cooked potatoes over, along with a big cabbage. Later we returned the platter with some homemade baked goods that we'd brought with us and they followed up by giving us a loaf of bread. You can't out-give Japanese people!

First night sunset, and the only night we saw anything resembling a sunset!

The house in the picture is that of our generous and friendly neighbours.

 Wonderful hydrangreas in the "wild".

The stick insect the boys found and "played with" for a while. Nicknamed "Synestro" I think.

This camp turned out to be a level above our usual camping style. A coffee machine! I don't even have one of them in my house!

This cabin looks bigger than it actually is. There were two floors, upstairs was open and seven people slept there one night. Yes, one of the tents leaked and was evacuated at 3am Sunday morning. I was selfishly thankful that it wasn't our new tent! Downstairs contained a bathroom and toilet, small kitchen, and a room off the verandah that was our dining room and became the adult hang-out (or "reading room").

On Saturday there was rain forcast for later in the day, so we did some outside things while we could. I proposed a stroll, but that turned into a mountain climb! The photo below is of the easy bit on the road. We climbed the peak of the mountain we were camped on—only 200m higher than where we were situated—but a bit more than a stroll. We were definintely looking middle-aged when contrasted with these six young men!

Another view of the valley, looking back towards Tokyo. This land truly looks like God did origami with the ground!

After midnight on Sunday morning the rain really closed in, not super heavy, but constant. It rained for 24 hours, so on Sunday we were especially grateful for the cabin. 

We volunteered the boys to set up a roof over the balcony for the Sunday night dinner. Most of our meals we could cook inside, but what we'd planned for that night needed coals (in the absence of an oven inside). It worked really well and held up overnight until the next day when the rain stopped and we were able to get most of our gear dry before packing up to return home on Monday.

I didn't get any inside photos, but our friends brought a bunch of Lego sets that the boys spent quite a lot of time putting together upstairs. We also played board games, did puzzles, and read. 

Our families are similar in ages and our boys have been in a number of the same sports over the years, so we've gotten to know each other and spent many hours at events and travelling to and from events together. The mum of this family is the lady I travelled to Korea with in 2017 to watch our son's last high school competition. Our eldest boys both graduated together that year and have barely seen one another since then, so it was a great opportunity to catch up.

Overall it was a good weekend away. Quite different to a usual camping trip for the Marshalls, but overall very relaxing and a great getaway. 

We're now preparing for another getaway on Monday, this time for two weeks in a larger abode on our own. David and I have been looking forward to that for many months. The boys are not so convinced that it's a good thing. Hopefully they misgivings will be unfounded and we'll have a great time away recharging.