1000th Post!

Given the anniversary theme of my most recent writings, it seemed appropriate to mark another important milestone - yep, this is the 1000th Happy Hamby Campers post!  Wow!

When I started this blog (my first) just over five years ago, I was new to blogging and wanted a broad theme that allowed plenty of scope for writing.  There was a lot going on in those days and heading into the nearby forest for day-trips or longer stays was our stress-relief. We all enjoyed the outings - and they were cheap therapy!

We already referred to ourselves as the Happy Hamby Campers, so naming the blog was easy - and I had plenty of starting material as we'd had a number of trips.  I decided to document them all, even though there was a bit of catching up to do.  (I later learned how to back-date them to their correct order, even though it pre-dated the blog's inception of November 2010).

Why blogging?  For a few years before starting the blog I'd included an annual newsletter with our Christmas cards.  I had a private webpage and would upload a colour version of the newsletter there.  I couldn't publish both pages though and there was no archival function - ie each year's newsletter replaced the previous one.

The best solution seemed to be a blog.  Even so I had hesitations regarding our privacy and initially the blog was only accessible to our extended family and friends.  Over time it became public and grew to include the various pages you now see. We even have a YouTube channel (in need of more "footage")!

We are not expert campers but have racked up a reasonable amount of experience and hopefully that knowledge helps others.  My main motivation for writing though is to record our adventures, so we can appreciate how far we've been - in spite of life's challenges and interruptions.  As the song goes, accentuate the positive!

Until we lived at Hamby Home(in)stead, all our rental homes had been on normal suburban blocks.  We lived in pleasant areas but definitely enjoyed venturing into the great outdoors with more space around us.  These days we are living in our van in a caravan park, so have an even keener desire to explore further afield!