Freezing at Leanganook...

Sure, it all looks like smiles and sunshine now, but one of us did not sleep well during the night when it was colder than a very cold thing!

Buffoons on display

Flashie and I have blow up single mattresses for camping for two reasons: 1) we like to be somewhat comfortable and 2) we're princesses. There seems to be two schools of thought for the blow up mattress: those in favour and those against, including the naysayers who claim their mattresses get "full of cold air from the ground, so I'm just sleeping on cold air" to which I say "You're not doing it right, you nufty".

The trick is to have insulating layers and the first of these is on the ground, underneath the blow up.  One of those thin foam roll up numbers (with a foil coating on one side) goes under the blow up and stops cold air seeping in. It also protects the blow up from anything on the ground/tent base that might puncture it. Whether you go foil down or foil up is up to you. I've tried both (thinking foil down will reflect rising cold air away from the blow up / foil up will keep my own heat radiated towards me) - I honestly couldn't tell the difference either way.  Having the foam on top of the blow up is also an option (definitely foil up in this situation). I imagine that my own body heat would warm up the foam, which would probably be a low conductor so the heat wouldn't easily dissipate.....oh dear, this is sounding terribly nerdy isn't it?

Anyway.... Balders had come with a whizz-bang, you beaut, upmarket camping mat - which turned out to be next to useless in providing comfort and reducing the cold. So the first thing we did upon surfacing in the morning (after the temp went down to 1 scummy degree of freezement) was have a good walk about to warm up, make coffee and then discuss possible solutions to the cold/discomfort issue. Balders had a little test lie down on one of our blow ups and promptly nodded off for an hour!

Upon her re-appearance from the tent, we ventured out to Castlemaine to seek out a delish cooked breakfast at The Dove Cafe, followed by air mattress shopping.

And then we got tattoos! Yay!