How close is too close - or what does camping mean?

[Happy Pirate]

From the recent topic on camping with a guitar, it got me thinking of the differences between camping in Aus and some possible differences in more populous, less wild countries.
So; what is considered a minimum common courtesy in camping next to other people? Distance, space, noise etc. And how do we define the difference between wilderness camping and social experience?
My recent personal anecdote is that after 2 days of walking the Great Ocean walk and half a day of wandering through an awesome forest of tall E.regnans I arrived at the Elliot River Campground to find it deserted. I chose the campsite most distant from all others, pitched my tent then went for a walk. When I came back a party of 4 Brits had walked in from the near carpark and chosen the camp closest to mine in an otherwise empty campground. They were boisterous and noisy as any group camp is so I eventually went over and asked them why they chose to camp as close to the only other camper as possible. They were a bit flummoxed but one bloke suggested it would have seemed rude not to.
I informed him that in wilderness camps in Aus it was more rude to do so.
It's a curious difference in perspective and I suspect that those brought up in crowded urban environments try to rub elbows more so than others.
It is reflected also I think in the mass Grey Nomad camps that are essentially just proxy urban environments.
Excuse my rambling but what IS wilderness camping and at what point do other people spoil the experience?
Cheers
Steve

[GPSGuided]

You obviously picked a good spot with ideal aspect etc. Great minds think alike!

[Swampy460]

Being a grey nomad in training. And having done a fair bit caravaning , some times to remote places. It absolutly flumoxes me that we will camp at one end of a camp area and next thing someone pulls in and sets up within metres of us

Now its not that I am anti-social but do like a bit of seperation and quiet where possible, thats why we go to these out of the way places.
Just my rant too...

Haven't come across it while walking yet, sorry if I went a bit O/T

Swampy

[Strider]

I actually enjoy meeting people and having a chat while out and about, but can also appreciate that this is not everyone's cup of tea. I have no problem with others camping close to me, provided they are friendly and courteous, though when faced with a situation such as yours would give space to earlier arrivals to the campsite.

[perfectlydark]

I camp specifically to get away from people although I am friendly and always happy to chat with a passing walker. If someone set up that close for no reason I guess if they were quite I woukdnt mind but id be uneasy the whole time. Probably pack and leave and find somehwhere else if it was a noisy group. Interesting on the cultural differences as my american in laws consider camping to be big fires, kumbaya, guitars and making "smores" (just give me the chocolate thanks). Camping for me is not a social experience but a personal one even if im with my brother or anyone else so id have to say that the best rule 9f thumb is to treat a campsite like a vacuum and people as gas..spread as evenly as possible dont clump!

[neilmny]

Steve, there has to be a cultural difference involved or perhaps their perception of space is just different to ours
(given the population differences between countries). We are used to a lot of space here in Australia.
The fact that they thought it rude to not camp near you is "interesting"
I'm with you Steve, I don't blame you for being cheesed off.

As far as how close is too close........... maybe it should be far enough away that a normal conversation could not be
clearly heard..... but then again some peoples idea of a normal conversation is megaphone mouths at 10 paces

[Strider]

If it were a cultural thing, you would agree that Australians all take dirt bikes and 4wd utes loaded with beer and large speakers and with a trailer full of firewood when they go camping.

I am certain the difference is sub-cultural. Just like I am sure not all American campers sing kumbaya and make s'mores.

[GPSGuided]

I am certain the difference is sub-cultural. Just like I am sure not all American campers sing kumbaya and make s'mores.

+1.

[GPSGuided]

A close analogy of this issue is the following. Fact is, every community/society has them.

[perfectlydark]

True on subculture.
yep urinals are perfect analogy

[Pteropus]

I was thinking that the behaviour might be something like GPSGuided's urinal analogy. It's probably psychological to some degree. Have you ever been the only person in an empty train carriage, and then someone comes and sits close by, when most people spread out and only choose to sit close to a stranger when there is little choice left but to sit next to other people? And it makes you feel uncomfortable that this person has sat near you, and you wonder if they are up to something? But nothing happens and they have just sat close by. Or say, there is a large number of empty car park spaces, and one car parked, then sometimes someone has to park right next to that one car? I have seen it and wondered what drove (pun intended) that person to park right up against the other car. I guess its coz people are just wired a little differently to each other...

[GPSGuided]

To further extend. Some have intractable sheepish herd mentality and will always congregate, while others are individuals, always yearning to be different. When that dingo comes and by being close, it'll need to choose, and some hope it'll be HappyPirate's tent.

[Strider]

I think it comes down to humans being social creatures. When faced with an unfamiliar situation, we take solace in the company of others. The difference between individuals here might stem from differing levels of familiarity and personal comfort with direct regard to the bush environment, i.e. a seasoned bushwalker that is used to spending up to 2 weeks alone in the bush will likely behave differently to a family-man who works in an office with a close team of people and is on his first solo multi-day bushwalk.

[Hallu]

I usually drive around the whole camping ground before choosing my spot. A mixture of flat ground, scenery, and away from groups. I like campgrounds in Victoria because most of the time you have individual parcels, separated by trees and bushes, sometimes with your own fireplace/picnic table. In France and the UK, camping is mostly about caravaning. You don't see tent camping in the countryside, only in the mountains/national parks, because accommodation and towns are always close-by elsewhere. Australia is different, you enter wilderness after driving 2 or 3 hours out of major cities, and can also find little pockets of paradise even closer. Hence camping here is an experience in itself, while a similar campground in the countryside in Western Europe would be trashed in no time so it's mostly big noisy caravan campgrounds with cooking/cleaning facilities (bushcamping is never allowed). You don't camp to camp, you camp to visit the surroundings and save money.

[Travis22]

I usually drive around the whole camping ground before choosing my spot. A mixture of flat ground, scenery, and away from groups. I like campgrounds in Victoria because most of the time you have individual parcels, separated by trees and bushes, sometimes with your own fireplace/picnic table.

Im exactly the same when 'car camping'. When visiting an area i know well ie. the ANP we only bother heading for the camp sites which if available mean we will be the only people within a 10km area easy. If that 'ones' taken we move onto the next.

Id never usually camp in a large area where different 'groups' occupy different corners, eventually they fill up and you end up with people filling the gaps and before you know it your neighbors are 5m away.

......... I find the OS tourist thing interesting, ive never really encountered it myself but just this month a fellow i know who's currently doing the Canning Stock Route had an 'encounter' with iirc 3 Euro tourists who pulled up in the middle of the night where he was camped alone, parked their Wicked Camper less then 1m from his Swag then proceeded to relight his camp fire with his firewood and started to party. Naturally he gave them a what for, extinguished the fire and went back to bed, they were gone before he woke up in the morning.

Travis.

[stepbystep]

Go to a long empty beach, walk for 500m take your spot. I guarantee the next person to show up will come and sit within 20m. People are very strange...

[wayno]

i dont think part animals who like to make a lot of noise get people who like solitude and quiet... they may have assumed you were going to be sociable the same way they were
who knows maybe its subconsicous, animals group together for safety reasons, they see one of their own species alive and well so out of instinct they join them, like birds... they are doing it because evolution has programmed them to do it, it increases their chance of survival, its more likely to be a safe space and if something like a predator comes along it increases their chances, more eyes and ears to spot the danger and more chance another animal will get attacked first....?

[Lindsay]

I camp specifically to get away from people although I am friendly and always happy to chat with a passing walker. If someone set up that close for no reason I guess if they were quite I woukdnt mind but id be uneasy the whole time. Probably pack and leave and find somehwhere else if it was a noisy group. Interesting on the cultural differences as my american in laws consider camping to be big fires, kumbaya, guitars and making "smores" (just give me the chocolate thanks). Camping for me is not a social experience but a personal one even if im with my brother or anyone else so id have to say that the best rule 9f thumb is to treat a campsite like a vacuum and people as gas..spread as evenly as possible dont clump!

That about sums it up for me as well. I'm not anti-social, but I like my privacy and solitude when out in the bush. That's one of the reasons I go there. I think that some people are 'afraid of the dark' ie. a little bit uncomfortable in the bush and like the thought of others close by at night.

[Hallu]

Well it is true that once you try to sleep in your tent and hear bats screaming, koalas grunting, wombats tearing grass and chasing each other, or big kangaroos stomping around and sniffing, it can be a bit scary at first, especially when you're half asleep. I'm sure we've all had this type of experience. But you get used to it.

[Happy Pirate]

A close analogy of this issue is the following. Fact is, every community/society has them.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice One!

[Happy Pirate]

I was thinking that the behaviour might be something like GPSGuided's urinal analogy. It's probably psychological to some degree. Have you ever been the only person in an empty train carriage, and then someone comes and sits close by, when most people spread out and only choose to sit close to a stranger when there is little choice left but to sit next to other people? And it makes you feel uncomfortable that this person has sat near you, and you wonder if they are up to something? But nothing happens and they have just sat close by. Or say, there is a large number of empty car park spaces, and one car parked, then sometimes someone has to park right next to that one car? I have seen it and wondered what drove (pun intended) that person to park right up against the other car. I guess its coz people are just wired a little differently to each other...

Yeah I think it probably reflects the social lifestyle/upbringing. If you're brought up in high-density suburbs or cities and are used to constantly rubbing elbows, you seek that out in more confronting situations like the outdoors.

I like the GOW campsites because they have the shelters for cooking and mingling and socialising, but then I want to retreat to my own space.

[Happy Pirate]

I usually drive around the whole camping ground before choosing my spot. A mixture of flat ground, scenery, and away from groups. I like campgrounds in Victoria because most of the time you have individual parcels, separated by trees and bushes, sometimes with your own fireplace/picnic table.

Im exactly the same when 'car camping'. When visiting an area i know well ie. the ANP we only bother heading for the camp sites which if available mean we will be the only people within a 10km area easy. If that 'ones' taken we move onto the next.

Id never usually camp in a large area where different 'groups' occupy different corners, eventually they fill up and you end up with people filling the gaps and before you know it your neighbors are 5m away.

......... I find the OS tourist thing interesting, ive never really encountered it myself but just this month a fellow i know who's currently doing the Canning Stock Route had an 'encounter' with iirc 3 Euro tourists who pulled up in the middle of the night where he was camped alone, parked their Wicked Camper less then 1m from his Swag then proceeded to relight his camp fire with his firewood and started to party. Naturally he gave them a what for, extinguished the fire and went back to bed, they were gone before he woke up in the morning.

Travis.

A Wicked Camper on the Canning Stock Route!!??
Is there anywhere those $(^!*# things won't go!
I call them Dick 'ed Campers.

[Happy Pirate]

Being a grey nomad in training. And having done a fair bit caravaning , some times to remote places. It absolutly flumoxes me that we will camp at one end of a camp area and next thing someone pulls in and sets up within metres of us

Now its not that I am anti-social but do like a bit of seperation and quiet where possible, thats why we go to these out of the way places.
Just my rant too...

Haven't come across it while walking yet, sorry if I went a bit O/T

Swampy

Swampy
the Grey Nomad (and Dick 'ed Camper) phenomenon can be an odd one sometimes. Especially when you see about a hundred of them lined up in rows in one town common as I once saw in Mareeba.
The amount of times I've come across people camping in dirty truck stops, roadside quarries, alongside noisy highways in little roadside pull offs; when 20 km or so down the road there will be a beautiful National Park campsite or something.
Just recently, outside of Ingham in the driver reviver park that everyone uses there was a couple in a campervan who had pulled up next to a full skip bin and positioned their deck chairs so they looked out directly onto the skip and the highway behind rather than reversing in and setting up to look out at the field behind them.
Perhaps there are just certain people who are completely uninspired by nature/beauty/quality of experience or have never experienced such to know better.
Very strange.
Steve

[ribuck]

Australia has plenty of opportunities for isolated wilderness camping.

If you don't like company, and you choose a spot that can accommodate more than one group, you're doing it wrong.

[Happy Pirate]

Australia has plenty of opportunities for isolated wilderness camping.

If you don't like company, and you choose a spot that can accommodate more than one group, you're doing it wrong.

A little too glib, I feel.
Unless you are an off-track devotee, and I know some here are, there are fewer good opportunities for isolated wilderness camping in many of the favourite marked trails in Aus than one may think.
You never know who will be at a camp until you arrive so such things can never be planned. In fact I find the question of whether I will get a quiet campsite tonight to be one of the most stressing issues of my day walking in many cases.
In the GOW where I was describing, you are expected to use only proscribed campsites, and even in less regulated but still popular areas like the Alps, the best and best known regions are rarely examples of isolated wilderness camping.
And the reason? They are some of the most picturesque and accessible regions in the country.

So why should those of us who prefer solitude (and arguably may thus appreciate an area more) have to choose poorer places to stay than those more gregarious souls who may be spending less time appreciating their surroundings?
Just thinking out loud
Steve

[Travis22]

A Wicked Camper on the Canning Stock Route!!??
Is there anywhere those $(^!*# things won't go!
I call them Dick 'ed Campers.

Sorry no i should have been clearer on that, this incident happened to him while traveling up from Melbourne. That incident occurred at Palm Springs just out of Halls Creek prior to heading down the CSR.

Id highly doubt any Wicked Campers could survive the CSR, i have seen them in some amazing place but definitely not there.

Travis.

[walkinTas]

To further extend. Some have intractable sheepish herd mentality and will always congregate ....

We talked about this somewhere before. One of the meanings of Gregarious: (of animals) Living in flocks...

Some of us are just not gregarious and would prefer other campers to flock off to the other side of the camping spot.

[Hallu]

A Wicked Camper on the Canning Stock Route!!??
Is there anywhere those $(^!*# things won't go!
I call them Dick 'ed Campers.

Sorry no i should have been clearer on that, this incident happened to him while traveling up from Melbourne. That incident occurred at Palm Springs just out of Halls Creek prior to heading down the CSR.

Id highly doubt any Wicked Campers could survive the CSR, i have seen them in some amazing place but definitely not there.

Travis.

It should be mentioned that Wicked Campers are actually forbidden to go on unsealed roads, even their most expensive insurance won't cover that. They're rubbish really, if you see somebody in one, he's got no clue what he's doing. Jucy are the same price, with better insurance and (a lot) better vehicles.

[Orion]

I run into this situation on occasion and have become adept at slam packing and moving the tent and everything very quickly. It's happened to me a couple of times in Tasmania.

I don't know what the common element is in terms of culture or sub-culture, if there is one. Could it just be a lack of sensitivity and awareness?

[Travis22]

It should be mentioned that Wicked Campers are actually forbidden to go on unsealed roads, even their most expensive insurance won't cover that. They're rubbish really, if you see somebody in one, he's got no clue what he's doing. Jucy are the same price, with better insurance and (a lot) better vehicles.

I do not believe this is true regarding dirt roads, either that or the tourists just dont give a stuff anyways (highly likely given their choice of vehicle!)

We ran into Wicked Campers all across the Kimberley especially along the Gibb River Road in 2010.

Last year they were up around Cape York granted they dont have a hope in hell on the OTL track etc. but anywhere a std car goes they go and a little further

.....................

Ok i just Google'd Wicked Campers off road, and it seems they have a whole new breed of vehicles available (none of which ive actually seen 'off road'). Perhaps this is to further discourage the use of their standard 'vans' going off road.

Travis.