[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by azzarule

We used to go camping all the time when I was a kid, in Scamander down on the east coast of Tasmania, in Oz. In the summer school holidays, my Dad would drop us kids off down there, and go back home for the week to work (about 3-4 hours away), and come back at the weedends. We used to camp on the beach in the old Canvas type 11X11 tent, what a ball, used to light huge bonfires on the beach, and sit around cooking potatoes and apples in the fire, still love those potatoes, throw them in until they get really black and charred, then pull them out, let them cool down and crack them open, they are all fluffy and white and cooked on the inside, yumm.

East coast of Tassie used to be great for star gazing as it has the clearest skies, and as it is right on the Pacific ocean and no real population there was very little ambient light to interupt the stars lights. So we used to lay on the beach and watch the stars, when I was young we used to go down to watch the Appollo rockets and missions go over in the sky! Showing my age eh! There were very few satellites back then. Now you can't camp on the beach, now you can't camp anywhere along the Tassie coastline really, the camping Nartzies (sic) have stopped everyone cause they want you to crowd into their camping areas, so now its better to go up into the highlands and find somewhere to camp near a quiet lake (read black fella billabong) and do some fishin'.

Jeff we used to go up around Lake St Claire as well, went there just before coming over to the US of A. Lovely area, so beautiful,

Sounds pretty awesome. ^^

I sometimes feel frustration at all the urban kids that never get to see the night sky in all its glory.

The highlands though, are even better for it than the beach. Less humidity, and higher altitude means less air.