Jim Kayes: And the kitchen sink

Camping ain't what it used to be. Photo / Getty Images

Oh, how the under-equipped camper suffers, writes Jim Kayes

Camping jealousy is realising other people have cooler stuff.

We said goodbye to camping as we bade a soggy farewell to 2004, waking one morning to find our tent at the Omapere campground suddenly surrounded by a lake.

Thankfully a cabin was available, so we left the sodden mess where it was and made for dry ground. We didn't look back for 13 comfortable years.

But that changed when the girls joined the Red Beach Surf Life Saving Club this summer.
The eldest had a training camp in Gisborne in December and as she was in a cabin, I bought a $100 pup tent to have a bedroom of my own.

One night it rained, the tent leaked and I slept on the concrete floor of the dining room. That wasn't fun.

So I upgraded for another training camp at Mangawhai Heads, with the manager of Kathmandu in Albany promising the bigger, five-person tent was not only easy to put up but it was guaranteed to be waterproof for three years.

This wasn't tested, as it didn't rain, but the tent, with colour-coded poles, was easy to put up. That, unlike some of our neighbours, was all we put up.

We were a bit different in that regard because what I've realised is that modern camping comes with a trailer-load of gear.

In 2000 (pre-kids) my wife and I camped from Whitianga right down the east coast to Wellington in a tent barely big enough for the two of us.

Now people take more gear camping than some people have in their homes — and with it comes camping jealousy.

It's like when you order a meal, then see what the person at the table next to you has ordered and realise their meal is better. Or check in to a hotel and discover your room is okay, but your mate's has a view of the pool.

Camping jealousy is realising other people have cooler stuff.

One camping neighbour brought beanbags and sat, relaxed, under the shade. Some brought shelves, clotheslines, bunk beds, solar showers and gas fridges. Those in caravans (not real camping, I know) had ovens, so were spared using the camp kitchen.

Everyone, though, had to use the camp toilets. The less said about them, the better — but let's just say, when you've already stumbled out of the tent, with its oh-so-clever zip system, at 3am with a full bladder, a four-digit lock on a toilet door is taking security a step too far.

The greatest jealousy in camping is shade (and water-tightness when it rains, but for me at Mangawhai Heads, it was shade).

Gone are the days when a simple tent was enough.

Now they have bedrooms — wings almost — and extra shade canopies to expand your footprint.

They have tables set up under their impressive awnings and enjoy relaxed meals cooked over barbecues brought from home, and beers from the handy fridge.

I tried to saddle up my high horse and suggest it wasn't camping; that they might as well have booked a cabin or a motel for all the "roughing it" they were doing.

But I was too hot and thirsty, so I meekly stepped into the shade, accepted the proffered beer and admitted quietly to myself that I'd be investing in more camping gear before next summer — and a trailer to lug it in.