Camping ain’t for sissies

It enriches, yes, but sometimes leaves you poorer

- Hein Kaiser

There is something about camping that simply feeds the soul. It can also be soul destroying when things go awry, but, somehow, challenging experiences leave you enriched – and sometimes a bit poorer. Klein Kariba, close to Bela-Bela, delivered all the aforementioned in just four days.

After a 90-minute drive from Joburg, Klein Kariba is a welcoming oasis: green, impeccably maintained and everyone’s friendly. It’s an ATKV (Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereeniging) resort, so the first language is Afrikaans. All the signage is bilingual and so are the personnel.

From the get-go it felt as if the staff were invested in our family having a fantastic time. Helpful would be an understatement; open arms a better description of how it embraces its customers.

So, ok. People are friendly. But camping still ain’t for sissies. After checking in and arriving at our designated, and paved, camping site, the trouble started. It was near impossible to hammer in the tent pegs into the paving. After all, bricks are solid, not porous. It took forever just to get the ground-sheet secured, and at some anchor points and several bent pegs later, we couldn’t secure the tent well enough, as both my family and our camping friends would learn to our horror, later.

To make the lust for a sunset beer significantly greater, the valve that was required to connect our pump to our inflatable tent, was missing in action. We opted for an inflatable tent at the start of our camping journey because, well, having no poles seemed like less hassle. And previously it was just like that.