This is the next tale, and it tells of how the boy and girl learned to make camp in the wilds.
There was a time, oh best beloved, when the boy and girl, green to cycle-touring, decided to pack up their bicycles and take to the mountain roads of Norway between Bergen and Oslo. The boy, who was not so much a boy although he still screamed 'train' every time one passed, and the girl, who was not so much a girl but was highly offended when anyone dare suggest otherwise, had included in their luggage a solar panel, a packet of daim chocolate, and a very small tent.
They rode higher and higher into the mountains, and the higher they rode, the worse the weather grew. It started spitting, and then raining, and then torrentially pouring from the sky. But still they rode on. Higher and higher. They passed through waterfall country. At each turn in the road, they stopped to count waterfalls. The first turn there were six. Then eight. And then more than the eye could see. Far beyond, a glacier faded into the mist.
After some time, the girl said to the boy, 'I am tired. We should make camp soon.'
'Just a little higher', said the boy.
They rode on. A little later, the girl said again. 'I'm tired of riding in the rain and it is getting dark. We should make camp soon. Aren't you hungry?'
And so they stopped. They selected a site to make camp high up on a river bank, beneath wide trees. The girl, who was a little bit wise, suggested a place to camp. 'No', the boy said, 'I think here is better because it is flatter'. The girl frowned. 'I think it is too low. What if it keeps raining?'
'And it cannot rain any more than it already has.'
She liked the boy, who had been a guide in the wilds of Tasmania, and accepted that he knew best about such things. This may not have been as wise as she would have liked to think.
They set up their tent, and fell asleep listening to the gentle patter of rain on canvas.
At around 5am the next morning, the boy sat up. The sun had already risen, as it does so early in Norway. The boy turned to the girl and said 'I think I'm floating.'
'I think I'm floating too.'
He poked the floor of the tent. It wobbled.
'We are floating.'
They both clambered out, and found that everything they owned was bobbing about. It was a soup of cutlery, bags, stoves, sleeping bags and other such paraphenalia. Together they fished everything out, and set about packing their soggy bags. Afterwards, they stopped to survey the deep hole full of water in which they had been camped.
The girl, who was a little bit wise, but not very wise, was wise enough not to say 'I told you so'.
And ever since then, oh best beloved, they have chosen their campsites with far more care.
