Bear Creek Lake ~ Camping in the USA!

Its a long weekend for Labour day.........lets go camping!!!

We have just had our first camping experience in the USA. Camping over here is a little different to how we, as a family, ordinarily camp! You see we made a booking for 3 nights, got our group site (as we were one of 3 families going), pitched the tents and enjoyed the comforts of a hot shower and proper toilet everyday!!
Back home we would head down a 4 wheel drive access only track, deep into the bush and use a solar camp shower to wash! We have had the 'comfort' of a pit toilet at least :)

 

Meet the families:

Mike, Pia, Annabel & Lucas

Sam, Mitchell, Col, Rhyce & Korey

Bernadette, Mikayla, Dave & Aiden

So back to Bear Creek Lake! This is a great little spot in the Cumberland State Forest with LOTS of things for a family to enjoy........oh and there are no bears! Here is the link to the website if you would like some further info: Bear Creek Lake

We packed up the car............ok we shoved as much in as we could and you could not even see the smallest gap out of the rear window!!! Col had hired 2 canoes and a trailer from work for the weekend, so we hooked that up and set off at about 5:30pm on Friday night. It is about a 2 hour drive South West of where we live, so not too far at all. We managed to take a different route, thanks to our neighbours who would join us later that night, so not too much traffic at all!

We arrived at the park, checked in and set about finding the perfect patch of ground to pitch our tent. We booked a group site, so had it exclusively for the 3 families. The older 2 boys had their own little tent, so we put them to work on that. Lets face it, we had minimal light left and the last thing we needed was children nagging us! As darkness fell, we were set up enough to relax and enjoy a nice glass of wine/beer and leave the rest for tomorrow!

Our tent, camp kitchen and the boys 2 man tent :)

Our neighbours pulled in at around 9pm and we provided some light for them to get set up. Said a quick hello and all headed to bed, ready to enjoy our camping weekend!

The next morning we finished setting up. We had a gazebo with screens and camp kitchen to put together, to make life a little easier! We do set our camps up like a home away from home :)
We were waiting for our friends to arrive, (they wanted to come in daylight.....great move) and our neighbour offered to take Mitchell and the boys down to the playground area by the 'beach' part of the lake. It gave us a chance to put the finishing touches on the camp! lol

Play ground by the 'beach'

Lowpoint:

Not long after Rhyce came back with Mitchell asking for some lunch. I set about making it and the neighbours son rode up on his bike and commented about Mitchell being with us, then returned to his parents. Not long after a park Ranger pulled up asking if that was Mitchell, yes it was, as he needed to sight him and call of the search for him!! What search!!! Unbeknown to us, Rhyce had failed to notify the adults that he was returning to camp with Mitchell. So many other campers, park police/rangers and our frantic neighbours had all been looking for him. the neighbours son was actually coming up to tell us he was missing! I felt completely terrible that this had happened. They were ready to pull everyone from the lake and search the water. BIG lesson learnt for Rhyce that day! I apologised to my poor neighbour and poured her nice cold glass of wine to calm her nerves!

Despite this being a low point in the trip here are some of the highlights!

 

Highlights:

Although there were lots of little spiders running around this web, I have been told that it looks like a caterpillar nest!

Archery

Swimming

Hiking

Water fights!

Kids all chilling out

Pottery class

Out in the Canoes!

Falling out of the canoe: Success
Taking water on board: Success
Getting new Nikon 5100 camera wet: Success
Fish for dinner: EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bear Creek is a great place to camp with children. Loads of activities and Ranger programs everyday. We will go back there again and we really enjoyed having our own space in the group site. The other campers were all on top of each other!