HAYLEY SORENSEN

foil makes a passable substitute.

PICK up your bloody rubbish. Are you one of the people who leave chip packets and discarded tinnies behind in a national park? You are a grub and should have a good long look at yourself and potentially a few years of hard labour.

BUGGER off with your genny. Seriously, you’re camping, you don’t need to bring a fridge and charge your phone.

DON’T correct your mate’s massively embellished yarns.

You’ve heard your mate Dave’s story about the time he was almost killed by a snake a few dozen times now, and every time the snake gets a bit bigger and bit deadlier.

The cute children’s python you remember him finding in his boot has somehow morphed into a venom-spitting taipan flying at his face from a tree.

Ordinarily you could remind him of reality, but when you’re 150km out of 3G, Dave’s imagined near-death encounters are one of your best options for entertainment.

DON’T get obnoxiously drunk. Fireside boozing is a delicate balance.

Drink too little and you won’t be able to drown out the sounds of the next campsite swearing at their kids or ravenous sounding dingoes howling that howl they make only when they’re signalling to their mates they’ve found a

“Don’t think no one has noticed you’ve mysteriously gone missing every time there’s a firewood collection”

tent full of people to eat.

Drink too much and you run the danger of winding up like my friend Emma at Dirt n’ Dust in Julia Creek in 2012 – maggot drunk, in her undies and weeping because she had her hand stuck in a Pringles tube.

Also, there is nothing worse than being hungover under the tropical sun in a polyester tent with no prospect of a Big Mac and a post-mix Coke.

FINISH all your work before heading out, so you’re not pestering your camp mates at Gunlom Falls on a Friday night to help you finish your column you should’ve filed two days ago.

Hayley Sorensen is a weekly columnist