It's the simple things. I just love showering when I'm camping. I think it must be the feel of the fresh clean air against your skin. This year was family Christmas year and we all headed down to the Clarence River in New South Wales. My brother and his family has camped here a few times and I can understand why. It is about a six hour drive but well worth it. This truly is an amazing part of the world. Whilst I believe there are other places to stay on the Clarence, we stayed on a working cattle property called The Gorge, which has been owned by the Winters family for more than 100 years.
Before we left, my niece asked if we could have blue and white as our Christmas theme. She loves her craft just as much as I do and wanted to be involved in the decorating. A little bit of camping didn't stand in our way, so armed with our supplies we spent Christmas Eve getting everything sorted. Apart from a bit of a surprise storm and gusty winds, we managed to put almost everything together - there were a few casualties, it seems ink runs when hit with a deluge of water!
Before Christmas lunch though, of course presents had to be opened. And once again, just because we were camping, didn't mean the man in the big red suit didn't find us. In fact, it would seem by the stash that he overcompensated. Seriously, you should have seen the pile, I don't think these photos will do it justice!
Lunch was fairly traditional. Each family had responsibility for a course. My sister put on a platter of pickies, Mum and Dad were responsible for main course of lamb, pork and ham all cooked in the camp ovens, my brother and his wife served up roast vegetables again cooked in the camp oven and I did dessert of fruit cake, trifle and mini cheesecakes.
And here's the two littlest members of our family - my sister's son James and my brother's daughter Mia.
I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and safe New Year! Here's to an amazing 2012!
Mechelle
