Travel Bugs
The rivalry between caravan campers and tent campers has been in full swing this summer in campgrounds across the country.
Do caravan campers think they’re superior to tent campers?
Coke v Pepsi, Holden v Ford, Superman v Batman, Federer v Nadal, Seinfeld v Newman, the All Blacks v the Springboks, Sydney v Melbourne, Celtic v Rangers, Ali v Frazier, Hall v Oates. These are the indisputable, lockedin-place, top-10 greatest rivalries of the world. Or so I thought, because with the Kiwi summer camping season having been in full flight these past few weeks, there’s another contender for the list that might just have to bump one of those famed rivalries off its perch (though certainly not Hall v Oates): caravan campers v tent campers.
As someone who’s traditionally done his best to avoid camping, I’d underestimated just how vicious this rivalry can get. And although it’s probably “vicious” in more of a Cold War sense than a World War II sense, the battle lines are real. They’re sometimes literal, too.
As in, friends of mine who’ve just returned from their annual Bay Of Plenty camping holiday were awash with tales of the scandal and gossip of their camping ground, including the arrogance of the caravan campers who’d erected a temporary fence.
Gasp! Yes indeed, some swaggering, too-cool-forschool caravan campers decided they didn’t enjoy the lowly tent campers walking past their pimped-out vacation-mobiles on the way to the ground’s central facilities block.
Never mind that it’s a well-trodden grass path and never mind that if you wanted total privacy you wouldn’t go camping in the first place.
No, no, these caravan campers like only the company of their own kind. In a total violation of the etched-instone Kiwi Camping Etiquette Laws, the caravan campers were intent on creating a segregated society.
Every evening they’d enjoy expensive beverages while bragging about who had the best outdoor furniture.
They’d let their children play with other caravan campers — but not those shifty-eyed tent camper kids. And each morning they’d awake to a partial fence uprooting, possibly by a disgruntled tent camper under the cover of darkness.
When your bag is the last off the carousel
Speaking of arrogance, how good is that feeling when your bag is one of the first off the airport carousel? You part your way through your fellow passengers like Moses and the Red Sea and know full well they’re wishing they were you.
I recently had the opposite experience with a 25-minute wait for my bag and if it hadn’t been for several other passengers in the same boat, I would’ve assumed it had been lost.
Eventually the bag flapped its way through that little flappy door and into view on the carousel, but the preceding 25-minutes was spent getting to know the dwindling pieces of luggage as they went round and round.
Or, there’s the embarrassment ofgrabbing the wrong bag and having to clumsily put it back in front of everyone.
It’s a similarly awkward moment to deciding to cross the road without the little green man and then a few steps later realising you have to abort. The loser-dom of that retreat back to the kerb . . .