We bought a new camping mattress today, one of those foam mattresses that fold up rather than roll up. Our old camping mattress finally died after many years of loyal service - it previously belonged to my parents, and to my grandparents before that! Tim and I have tried roll-up foam mats, inflatable mattresses, and those expensive self-inflating camping mattresses, but nothing was as comfortable as that old fold-up foam mattress. I hope we get a few good years out of this new one!

Although Tim and I haven't been camping as often as we'd like to lately, it's a really enjoyable way to holiday. Especially if the weather's on our side! Hopefully we'll fit in a trip or two in Victoria before we head north.

Our first holiday together, back in the summer of 1998-9, was a camping trip in the Grampians. I have such fond memories of that trip. Like falling asleep before midnight on New Year's Eve at Lake Fyans. And the shocked look from a little boy who spotted Tim's brightly painted toenails (gosh he puts up with a lot!) in the water while we were paddling near a waterfall one day :)

Since then we've done quite a few camping trips. The beautiful camp site at Johanna Beach in the Great Otway National Park is one of my favourite spots. And the underground camping at Coober Pedy was bizarre, but great fun :)

It's not always fun and games though - there was also the time we got caught out in Lake St Clair, Tasmania with a summer tent in freezing weather (in our defence, it *was* summer!). We also discovered that night that we'd forgotten to bring pillows, and that our inflatable mattress had a leak! We stayed in a hotel the next night ;)