The Great Camping Debacle: Buffalo, Sabotage, and Last-Minute Chaos

Let me tell you… if you ever find yourself needing content from everyday life—it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

You know how people say, “You just can’t make this stuff up”? Well, ain't that the truth?? Because we hadn’t even left for this much-awaited camping adventure yet, and there was already enough drama, confusion, and last-minute scrambling to fill an entire blog post. 

I really try not to drown my readers in an avalanche of blog posts or let them pile up in the into a never-ending content backlog in the "scheduled section", but honestly? Life just won’t stop handing me premium-grade content.

At this point, I don’t even have to try to find things to write about—disaster and absurdity just show up at my doorstep, uninvited, demanding attention.

So, there we were, two days away from what was supposed to be our big camping weekend. Sage and I had been preparing (read: panicking) for weeks.

First trip? Cancelled. Because of the weather.

Second trip? It was supposed to be our

rite of passage into the world of sleeping in the wild, cooking over a fire, and pretending I had even the slightest survival skills.

Sage, my equally clueless camping buddy, was just as green as I was, so naturally, we spent days mentally preparing for every possible disaster scenario-Snakes. Getting lost in the mountains. Starving because we brought the wrong food. You know....stuff like that.

It was going to be a group of about 10, rustic camping trip (as opposed to the previously cancelled "wild camping") —no lights, no signal, just us and the wilderness at Buffalo Gorge. It felt like a proper adventure. At least… until Thursday afternoon rolled around.

A message popped up in the group chat. Actual buffalo from a neighboring farm had broken through a fence and were roaming a little too freely near our camping area.

I had accepted the possibility of many camping mishaps—forgotten gear, questionable food choices, maybe even an ill-advised run-in with a spider the size of my hand. But a herd of rogue buffalo? Nope. Hadn't crossed my mind!

In a perfectly responsible move, the farmer informed us that hiking in the area wouldn’t be safe. And just like that, the entire plan crumbled.

By then, Sage and I were starting to think that someone was sabotaging our first camp out. Now, I don’t want to point fingers, but—Cinnamon. Cinnamon, our seasoned camping hiker, had been unable to join this trip. And, we had always discussed that my first camping trip would be with her. Could it be that she secretly orchestrated this buffalo drama to ensure I wouldn’t have my first camping experience without her? A little too convenient, if you ask me.

Anyway, what followed from there were 10 different suggestions, and to make matters worse, not all the suggestions were available so last minute.

This is when I realised that a patch of grass in the middle of nowhere is quite a popular spot amongst many. It appears all the years behind my back, people have been camping....who knew camping was such a hot commodity? I always thought people preferred their beds and Wi-Fi, but apparently, vast emptiness and potential encounters with wild animals are in high demand. Go figure.

But no worries—we weren’t about to give up that easily. Sage and I, ever the intrepid explorers (read: two clueless people with sleeping bags), decided we’d just pivot. No Buffalo Gorge? No problem. We’d find another spot.

Oh, how naive we were.

Stay tuned to see if we actually made it into the wild, or if this ended with a very well-lit “campfire” in the comfort of a suburban backyard. Either way, an adventure was to be had - whether it was surviving nature or just surviving the chaos of group trip planning, which, honestly, felt like the real endurance test.