I have just spent the last five days going through the most horrible experience of my life.

CAMPING.

Now I'm not talking about those half-assed school 'camps' (though ours was school organised and absolutely unescapably compulsory) where you played games all day, had a nice hot shower at the end and got a comfortable bed to go to at night. We spent five days out in the 'great rugged outback' getting progressively grimier and smellier. No showers, no flushing toilets, no running water and great clouds of dust and flies all frickin' week. I honestly cannot fathom how people could live like that for most of their lives and actually ENJOY it. I am a total city girl, born and bred.

For the sake of friendship and laziness, we decided to put four people in our two-man tent. (A record! Last year we only managed four people in a three-man tent.) It wasn't that bad, actually, even though we only got like half a person's space each and I was constantly woken up in the middle of the night by the condensation from our body heat and the soggy tent covering me face. (I'm telling ya, I so got the dud side of the tent!) It wouldn't have been bad at all if it hadn't been for the rocks and sticks littering the ground constantly digging into our sides and backs as we slept. I swear, it was a conspiracy against us! Those trees were evil. The sleeping mats they gave us really weren't much help at all, despite taking up most of the space in our packs.

Our packs! OH MY GOD! We had to carry three days worth of food for fourteen people in as many packs. Not to mention all the pots, trangeas, bits and pieces and fuel they gave us with it. Speaking of fuel, they sure gave us a hell of a lot of it - about six bottles for four days which was pretty ridiculous considering how tiny the metho burners were and how we only used them for dinner. What, did they want us to burn down the bush or something?

My pack wa seriously a third of my weight - which is no mean feat in light of how much I weigh ... We carried them everywhere except when we sled down the river. It was agony taking them up and down the practically vertical slopes. Agony. And really boring as well; all we did every day was walk from one campsite to the next.

I have never been so glad to see a flushing toilet! First thing I did when I got home was run into the shower and admire the way the water flowed out of the tap. An actual flowing tap. I spent like an hour in the shower washing off five days of accumulated grime. And then my hair was clean!

Thank the lord I don't have to do that ever again.

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