0
0
Its not until you reach a certain age, that you realise the impact your parents have had on your life, and what you’ve learned from them. My Dad is a legend. When we were tiny, he taught us to say “Dad is the best in every test” just because. He’s an encyclopaedia of witty mottos, a constant source of good advice and support. My brothers and I have been lucky enough to go on many adventures with Mum and Dad. This Father’s Day, Dad is somewhere between Alice Springs and Gemtree in the Northern Territory, having embarked on a trip he’s dreamed about for years (Mum is there too, of course; they’re a package deal, the indomitable two). Here’s five of the best lessons my Dad taught me about the world, travel and life.
The Seven Ps.
This might have started as a bit of a joke around our large family tables, often referring to the amount of beer or wine that would be needed for a camping trip.
“Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents a Piss Poor Performance”
Dad’s meticulous planning and organisation of camping trips, fishing expeditions and driving holidays is unmatched. His specialty is excel spreadsheets, which calculate distances between destinations, create packing and to-do lists, and even count down the days until departure. It truly is a marvel, and I’ve always admired his skills in this department.
While I don’t utilise Excel quite as well as Dad, I still prepare lists and sometimes the occasional spreadsheet to ensure I have packed properly (and thoroughly!). There’s other lists too, like a to-do list of activities for our destinations (“massage, shower and catch a movie at Changi Airport”). It makes it easier to see and experience a place in the small amount of time we have on holidays, rather than try to wing it when we’re tired and/or had several beers.
I’m yet to start counting down days in a spreadsheet though… I still use the old school calendar for that!
Esky Rules.
Before the days of fancy Engel portable fridges, we camped with eskies. Big ones, small ones (some as big as your head). On the beach, ice was a pretty precious commodity, outranked only by beer and food. Dad was the one who taught us kids early on the sacred rules of the esky.
- Eskies go in the shade – exposure to sun only makes it harder to keep beer and food cold.
- Stay of the esky unless you actually need to open it – a tricky one for some of us kids, who had a penchant for staring into the fridge and looking for food. Can’t do that with an esky… constant opening and closing means ice melts faster, which in turn means warm beers and half gone off food.
- Close the lid properly – for the love of your preferred deity, make sure the lid is closed properly and the latches are locked. There’s nothing worse than getting back to camp after a full day down on the sand to find the esky is doomed and the ice is cactus.
- One for one – also known as the “pack smarter” rule. Don’t stick all your beer in the esky at once; you’ll have no room for bacon, zucchini slice and cheese. Put two or three beers in, and as you take one out, replace it with another. This also applied to lemonade, water bottles and packets of Tim Tams.
A desire to travel in my own backyard.
Dad is always looking for his next adventure. Cape York, Central Australia, the Simpson, the Kimberley. He’s got a list of places to see and things to do a mile long. He and Mum packed us kids up and took us across to Fraser Island, camping, when we were just babies! When we got a bit older, he and Mum packed us up and moved to Karumba, a remote town in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Literally thousands of kilometres from “home”. Dad always says he never wants to look back on his life, and think “gee, I wish I had done that”. His desire to see as much of his own country as humanly possible has inspired similar in me.
Yes, I want to see the world the same as any 20-something year-old does. But I’ve also gotten a taste of the beauty and the soul of my own country. I’ve been lucky enough to jet in and meet my parents at locations that some Australians would only dream of visiting. Homegrown destinations are now making their way on to my to-do list.
Morning is the best time of day.
Dad is a morning person. I don’t remember if he was always a morning person, but after years of shift work and early starts, he just seems to wake up immediately happy and ready to take on the world. It does help if you’re getting up to go fishing, or its Christmas morning.
He has repeatedly declared, sometimes sarcastically, that early morning is the best time of day.
I tend to agree, and even waxed lyrical about sunrise recently. There’s something refreshing and soothing about early mornings, watching the sky change while sipping coffee.
How to put up a tent.
To be honest, I’ve taken this skill for granted. I just thought it was something that everyone learned. Turns out, it’s not. It also turns out that the way Dad puts up tents isn’t the way everyone else does it. There’s a set of little tricks Dad has when it comes to a canvas abode.
- For one, put a tarp under under your tent. It makes the tent easier to clean and fold away when it’s not covered in wet sand and various leaf matter. I honestly thought this was the ‘rule’ when putting up tents, until I went camping recently with some friends and witnessed the struggle between man, tent floor and dirt on pack up day.
- Colour code your tent poles. With coloured tape or symbols drawn on them. It removes the potential for temper tantrums and mass confusion, and makes set up so much quicker. Tents done faster = beers out sooner.
- Peg the tent out first. It makes wrangling canvas and tent poles easier.
- Sometimes you need to verbally coerce the tent into submission. Occasionally, tent pegs require the same treatment. I don’t know if it actually helps, but I feel better.
Dad taught me lot of stuff, including basic algebra, how to drive, how to pour beer, geometry and how to suck port through a Tim Tam. But these are five lessons I’ve called a lot in my travels as an adult. Thankfully, he’s a patient teacher. I’m not an easy student. Dad. Spinner of tales, purveyor of puns, fond of fishing, four-wheel driving and family. Love ya!
