Camping, but close to home

Press, 8 January 1982, Page 1

Camping, but close to home

By

PETER COMER

What drives so many outwardly normal Christchurch people to abandon their comparatively spacious quarteracre sections at this time of year for teeming tent-and-caravan “cities’’ half an hours drive away, and, in some cases, even inside the city boundary? One answer is money, according to the caretaker of the South Brighton Camping Ground, Mr Evan Bigwood. Mr Bigwood’s tidy, wellmanicured camp is tucked away among pine trees at - Jellicoe Park, well and truly inside the city boundaries.

Of the families in residence there yesterday, Mr Bigwood estimates that about 80 per cent are from Christchurch.

“Quite a few of them come here and let their houses to get a few extra bob, but they don’t like to admit it,’’ said Mr Bigwood. “Anyway, with all the trees and hedges here you can’t see much. You would think you were in the country,” he said.

An elderly camper at South Brighton gestured towards the Estuary a short distance away. "1 live at Redcliffs, just over there, but I like coming here.” he said. “It is a good family camp, well supervised. You don’t get the rough element.” A woman camper lived further afield — at Burnside. “We know a lot of the people who come here, and it's not too far to nip home if it rains."

It was not raining at South Brighton yesterday but it was raining, heavily, at the camps dotted along the coast north of Christchurch. The tent dwellers in these crowded refuges seemed in better spirits than those in caravans, who gazed out through rain-spattered windows, taking keen interest in anyone silly enough to move about in the rain.

Even some of the large, expensive caravans seemed definitely overcrowded. One was rocking perceptibly as numerous children inside vented their pent-up energy.

At least the caravan dwellers did not have to contend with the drainage problems faced by the tent dwellers, or the hazard of stumbling over guy-ropes in the mud — an easy thing to do in a cramped militarystyle “compound” at Woodend Beach which contains eight tents and four families from a street in Linwood.

Like many others, the “compound” is smaller than a suburban section, shielded from prying eyes by fences of sacking, and an “everything including the kitchen sink” venture. Moat-like trenches which would almost have come in handy at the Battle of the Somme surrounded some tents, ensuring the safety of their occupants even had it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Even one day of rain had taken its toll of campers’ tempers, however. “Mind your own business,” one man told a reporter when asked how his family whiled away the hours in their caravan when it was raining.

The proprietor of the Woodend Beach Camp Store, Mr Gavin Smith, described yesterday as a good day for sales of pies, books, and packs of cards. The camp newsletter announces that “technology has finally arrived at Woodend Beach Store” with the purchase of a microwave oven for heating pies and pizzas at any time of the day. A second tandem bicycle for hire by campers has also been bought “to double your enjoyment.”

The newsletter states that the rules covering the hiring of tandems are few: “Only two people on the cycles at a time; no racing over the judder bars, and keeping the cycles out of the sand and away from the .trees — but these will be strictly enforced.” On the veranda of the caretaker’s house is a sign saying “light no fires." Camping is fraught with hazards other than rain, wind, noisy neighbours, and insects.

A family who went to Spencer Park this year, hav-

ing rented out their house in Christchurch, tried to claim insurance after a branch fell from a tree on to the roof of their car. The insurance company pronounced the incident to be “an act of God.”

There are more deadly hazards. Mr Smith said he had been told-by an expert collector of poisonous katipo spiders that there had never been a season like this one for katipos on the beaches north of Christchurch.

“He (the katipo expert) came in with glass phials full of them. He reckoned that there were nests under just about every clump of marram grass where the kids romp around,” said Mr Smith.

There was also “a pretty heavy infestation” on the beaches of tiny bluebottle jellyfish.

There have been no reports of anyone being bitten or badly injured yet, but surely even lemmings, in tneir last mad rush to the sea, did not have to contend with such nasty things.

A social psychologist with the department of psychology at the University of Canterbury believes that the annual migration from city to camping grounds could be described as a “lemming-like phenomenon,” while not being necessarily abnormal. “Lemming-like” was a perfectly acceptable psychological term, he said.

If campers went to the same place for many years, as many did, a traditional pattern of behaviour could be established, a group feeling developed, and longstanding friendships formed. “One could make a comparison with the Kennedy Compound at Hyannisport. I think the Kennedys were reasonably normal, but then doubts have been raised about that,” said the psychologist. There is. of course, a very good reason to camp close to a city: so that children can have a good, carefree holiday, while mother or father commutes to work.

No doubt as many or more tent and caravan dwellers will be out to enjoy themselves next year. Perhaps, one day, everybody could live in camping grounds and spend their holidays at home in the city?