As a rookie camper, hitting the bush with a fabric house, a cheap duvet and a dodgy blow-up mattress was a daunting prospect for someone who turns their nose up at microfibre bedlinen.
But nine nights in the Kruger National Park was not an opportunity I could miss and none of our group showed any interest when I said the word “chalet”.
Not for them the safety of a brick wall and the comfort of a toilet steps away from the bed.
No, with the exception of my husband and I, the rest are experienced campers who can have animated conversations about groundsheets.
These are people who know about retractable washing lines, how to cook rice on a gas ring and the intricacies of electrifying a campsite.
It’s not like my husband and I have never camped. We have.
But it was 25 years ago when we had a tiny two-man tent, a braai grid, a soggy cooler bag and a manky sleeping bag. That was all it took back in the day for us to live outside.
We were also much younger with bladders that did not require multiple night-time visits to dank ablution blocks.
Also, we camped in summer months, where daytime ocean dips took care of what communal showers did not.
But the thought of sweltering, snakey summer days in Mpumalanga had little appeal, so we chose winter to visit the park when temperatures plummet to single digits after sunset.
Better to be shivering in a tent than sweating in it, is what we figured.
But, because we were reliant on others for the long drive from Cape Town to the Kruger, we thought it best to keep our luggage to a minimum, and so packed only a thinnish duvet from an affordable chain store and a flimsy knee blanket for warmth.
Also, instead of taking bulky pillows, we thought it best to sacrifice our necks upon two tiny scatter cushions.
And so, thanks also to the tent doorway my husband insisted on keeping open for ventilation, we clung gibbering to each other in the freezing early hours as the distant (we hoped) lions roared and hyena pups yipped.
But the cold was never going to be my greatest concern. That would be reserved for the runs to the loo in the deep darkness of the African bush.
This was what I researched in the weeks leading up to our trip. It was what I Googled, what I asked others who had camped in the national park rest camps. Had anyone been eaten in the Kruger rest camps? That was my question.
Long story short, I was advised to stay in my tent and use a bucket.
Hyenas, snakes and scorpions roam the rest camps, I was told.
I listened in horror as a man on the radio recounted unzipping his tent and almost treading on a puffadder.
And so, though my internet searches informed me to simply arm myself with a bright torch before heading for the ablutions, I bought a cheap bucket and lid, filled it with toilet rolls and flung it into my friend’s bulging trailer.
But I could not bring myself to use it. Up I got in the freezing darkness of Berg-en-Dal Rest Camp, torch in a vice-like grip, staggering unsteadily to the ablution block, its entrance inexplicably facing a dark thicket from whence arose rustling and howling. I know something was there, but not one person believes me.
By the ninth night, now encamped at the infinitely less wild-sounding Pretoriuskop Rest Camp, I was marching to and from the bathroom with the confidence of Bear Grylls. It was a personal growth experience.
Preparing for the trip was a costly affair, requiring a long shopping list of things we do not own.
No longer content to fold ourselves over to enter a two-man triangle tent, we bought one we could stand up in.
But the higher the tent, the higher the poles and the hooks that have to be fixed onto them. We needed three people to help us get it up.
We scratched our heads endlessly about the important question of what to sleep on.
Blow-up mattresses are the obvious choice, but even the salespeople in the camping stores shook their heads wryly about their reliability.
Anyone who has camped over the years has a story to tell about waking up at 2am with their butt and their spirits flat on the ground.
And so we looked into stretchers — too bulky — and fold-up mattresses — too flat — and finally ordered the deluxe queen-size self-blow-up mattress online.
Our camping compatriots had ordered them too and puffed them up to the glorious height of a regular bed.
With the groundsheet laid and tent erected, we opened our mattress, still boxed from the online store, ready to see it spring into shape for our first night under the canvas.
Instead of dispatching the deluxe queen super high, just-like-your-bed-at-home mattress as ordered, the vendor had seen fit to send us two double mattresses. Flat ones — ones you have to crouch down to access and ones that that make a rubbery noise with every toss and turn of our restless menopausal bodies.
Nothing “deluxe” about them. These were the “standard” models. Perhaps they thought that sending two would make up for it.
Our plan was to depart camp at dawn, as soon as the gates opened to allow wildlife watchers into the reserve.
As a person who insists on showering and washing my hair every morning, this meant hitting the ablution block at 4.30am sharp.
It also meant the showers had not been scrubbed since the ablutions of the night before, and so clumps of hair rose up as soon as the taps were on.
This I could overlook, but the lack of hot water on a freezing morning I could not.
Wrapped only in a towel, I turned on every shower and every bath, and all of them ran cold.
The cursing that accompanied a frigid shower and hairwash would make a sailor blush, and I stomped back to camp ranting like a toddler and vowing to catch the first bus back to my own bathroom.
It pains me to admit that there was nothing amiss with the ablution block’s geyser. The cold shower was all my fault. I had swung the mixer tap to the left instead of the right.
My camp mate informed me discreetly of my idiocy, but I bowed my head contritely and confessed to all.
Trivial household matters faded into obscurity as soon as we set off to scan the bush for animals.
We had close sightings of seven lionesses strutting down the road, followed by an elderly lion, struggling to keep up.
We saw lithe leopards on three occasions and majestic herds of elephants loping across the road before us, making their way to cross the Sabie River below, munching on foliage on their way down.
With just a fence separating our camp from the bush beyond, we had very special nightly visitors.
A beautiful civet we called Russell rustled in the dry leaves at Berg-en-Dal, and at Pretoriuskop we had visits from a hyena with huge dark eyes that we named Edwina.
She had her litter not far from the camp gate and in the mornings would lie by the roadside, exhausted from hunting and breastfeeding, ignoring the cars and the eyes within them.
And, because we are lucky enough to be friends with a former bush guide, we learnt the name of every passing bird and the maker of every poo.
Now, with expensive camping gear lying judgmentally in the storeroom, will I use it again?
Will I forego the comfort of a non-rubberised bed, a dry bathmat and a toilet just metres from my bed for the discomforts of camping?
Watch this space.
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