After the bravado of my youth, I’ve become the nagging parent camper

The Age’s opinion section is rolling out a series of summer pieces on the theme of ‘My Best, My First, My Worst’. These stories, penned by Age writers, range from humorous to poignant and thought-provoking tales of love, loss and summer fun.

A fundamental truth smacked me across the face as I retched into the undergrowth at a campsite by a beach on the Great Ocean Road: the idea of camping always outshines the reality.

Our memories erase the flies, the foraging animals raiding the bin, the stench of the toilet and the scrambling around for missing items.

Paul Pennay takes his family on a camping trip on the Great Ocean Road.

At the tail end of a large family, I didn’t do much camping growing up. There were bushwalks, but backyard sleepovers in the old tent that Mum and Dad took to Europe in the 1960s was as close as we got to roughing it in the great outdoors.

Forays into the world of the tent during my teenage years helped toughen me up for the hardship to come. Visits to the farms of high school friends for binge-drinking sessions dressed up as camping trips.

Dips into the ball-shrinking waters of the Murray, intermixed with death-defying leaps from grain silos. The food was rudimentary: snags on a grill, bowls of Weet-bix for breakfast, but the focus for us 15-year-olds was booze and bongs.

My forays into the forest now lack the bacchanalian bravado of my youth. The days of dodging flaming debris from exploding deodorant cans and leaping through bonfires have given way to a chorus of reminders to the little people in my life: shoes off before entering the tent, wash hands, brush teeth, eat some fruit, don’t forget your hat … I’ve turned into the nagging parent camper.

I’ve turned into the nagging parent camper.

The blistered feet of a teenage friend on my first summer away without the parentals now serves as a horror story to shock my kids into slathering on sunscreen.

A few frigid hours spent shivering in a tent during a “summer” night in northern England also imprinted a firm reminder to pack enough warm clothes and a suitable sleeping bag.

However, despite the obstacles and discomfort the freedom of the campsite still calls.

Appreciating the natural beauty of a camping holiday.

The pleasure of forgoing a morning sleep-in for the sake of a beautiful sunrise and a cleansing swim. Of leaning back to admire the stars in the night sky, with Elon Musk’s satellites now the shooting stars we point out to the next generation.

Escaping the demands of the screen and unplugging from the Wi-Fi.

Up-close encounters with wildlife also amaze. On this latest trip, my brother spotted his first platypus in the wild during a sunset stroll along the beach to the calm waters of an estuary, and the kids tingled with excitement after getting a little too close for comfort to a scorpion scurrying across the dunes as we made our way back from a twilight walk under the glow of a glorious full moon rising over the camp.

Despite all that, I think it’s something more elemental that convinces me to once again pack the tent and sleeping bags.

There’s a pleasure that comes with easing into a state of dirtiness, of giving way to the flies – and the bottle of red wine that overheated in the tent and left you with a towering hangover – and going with the flow.

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