Then there was a child.
Just like every other parent in history our world was turned upside down, inside out and the wrong way round.
I’ve learnt that sleepless nights age you unlike anything else and the deepest conversations we now have is about how soiled nappies get. Yet, the cliche holds, life has never felt more exciting and this adventure has been unlike any other.
But let’s be honest. The feet still itch. I still yearn for the adventures of yesteryear, when I could head off into the wilderness with only the things on my back and not another care in the world.
So what do you do when you crave two worlds at polar opposites?
Forge the middle ground.
There is a space where adventure can exist whilst safeguarding the most important part of your being. There really wasn’t a choice: Stronger than the yearning of adventure is the desire to raise our baby with our values, to let him experience what we cherish most in the world and the only way to do that is letting him grow up (semi-) wild.
FIRST WILD CAMPING
I had this romantic idea that our baby’s first camping trip would be completely wild, just like camping should be - away from people, civilisation and somewhere exquisitely beautiful. It would be this picture perfect moment, where our baby gets to explore a world so beautiful like it was a completely normal occurrence. He will fall asleep under the stars and sleep soundly to the dawn light to explore his beautiful surroundings once more. It would be incredible.
There are so many parallels between this and my most extreme expeditions and very quickly I learned that I’ll have to draw upon my most hard-learned lessons to make this a success:
Lesson Number One: With romantic notions alone expect a big helping of reality to slam you in the face.
No matter how experienced you were before being a parent, there is a whole new world of logistics to figure out when camping with a baby. Take your grand plans, enjoy them in your mind then throw them out with the bath water for something far simpler.
Our grand plans boiled down to a simple overnight trip. Leave Saturday midday and back on Sunday. We trawled over the maps and picked a spot in the Brecon Beacons exactly 2.5 hours away from here (that coinciding perfectly with his afternoon nap), any shorter or longer was not an option. We planned on camping by a lake 2-3 hours walk away from the car. Then climb a small hill on the Sunday on the way back down. What could go wrong?
Well...pretty much everything and we parked up late with a crying, tired baby that didn’t want to sit another 3 hours in a backpack in 30 degrees heat.
We were never going to make it to our intended spot before we would have to stop for his dinner and sleep time, which leads me onto tip number two, honed again from extreme adventures: Always have a back up plan. Fortunately for us, we had one. Halfway to our intended lake was another larger lake and as we arrived at this lake it was clear that we would have to stop.
For our baby it was still magical. He had his own private lake to throw stones into, he toddled around on the undulating terrain marveling at the clouds wisp around below him and watched the sheep all around him.
Did he sleep? God, no. a) It was his first time in a tent which is too exciting. b) It wasn’t dark (the sun didn’t even set until after 9pm.) c) we messed up his clothing.
Tip number 3 - want to do something cool with your baby? Say goodbye to sleep.
Still, he woke up with the biggest grin on his face, in the arms of his mummy and daddy and a twinkle of utmost happiness in his eyes and for that it was all worth it a million times over.
