December 2025 & January 2026

Five-Star Chaos: Our Wild Camping Suite

If you read our previous post (click here), you’ll remember that I mentioned we arrived at our campsite just before dark after getting stuck in thick sand. In today’s post, we are going to show you what our wild camping setup looked like. For two weeks we were cut off from the outside world – no radio, television, or Wi-Fi.

There was also not the ‘normal’ shower or toilet, nor an abundance of water (even though we were camping by the sea) and we were dependent on the sun to provide electricity. But did that bother us for one moment? Not at all – let us show you how you can make wild camping luxurious.

Our campsite:

When we booked our campsite with Theresa at the farm Waterval, we chose Skulpbank 52. If you were to translate ‘Skulpbank’ into English, it would be ‘Shell Bank’ or ‘Place of shells’. It definitely lived up to its name, as millions of tiny white seashells were spread out like a carpet in front of our campsite.

Our campsite at the farm Waterval – Skulpbank 52 (‘bespreek’ translates to ‘booked’)

Seashell carpet in front of our campsite

The view from our tent’s ‘front door’

Rooftop tent:

As with our previous camping weekends, we used our rooftop tent to sleep in. It worked perfectly and we never got cold (which was wonderful, as our campsite was shrouded in mist most nights during our time there).

Our ‘bedroom’ for two weeks

A cosy bed

View from our window and front entrance

Shower:

We set up a shower tent near the camping trailer and Berto connected the shower pipe to the trailer’s water tank. We made sure to use water sparingly by using the ‘open-close-open-close’ method. This simply means we turned the tap on to get ourselves wet, then turned it off while we lathered soap on our bodies. After that, we quickly turned the tap on again to rinse off and then turned it off again. We even showered together, thus ‘sharing’ the water – whether it helped or not, I’m not so sure, but it was a lot of fun.

Our shower – we even had a mirror

Portable toilet:

Now, the toilet is perhaps the one aspect that can scare off prospective wild campers. We placed our portable toilet (also known as a ‘porta potty’) a distance away from our campsite in a tent similar to the shower tent. Berto even bought artificial grass on which he placed our toilet – this can be seen as a luxurious touch, right?

Our ‘porta potty’ tent

The most important thing about a porta potty is to use biodegradable toilet fluid/rinse and toilet paper (specifically meant for portable toilets). Without going into too much detail, this ensures that all ‘solids’ and toilet paper break down so that when the porta potty is emptied, it is just liquid. Every four days or so, Berto would empty the porta-potty into a deep hole in the ground, and then it was my job to thoroughly clean it with Handy Andy (which, by the way, smelled just like wildflowers).

I think this is the best way to describe ablution facilities in a luxurious way while wild camping.

Diner tent & Gazebo:

We also brought our diner tent again (the same one we used a year ago at our three-week camp at Yellow Sands near East London). This tent was our dining room/dressing room/kitchen/lounge. At the front of our diner tent, we set up a gazebo that provided extra shade.

Diner tent and gazebo

Our ‘braai’:

Although most of the campsites have firepits, we brought our own ‘braai’. The legs can be unscrewed, and then it’s actually very small and easy to transport. A few years ago, Berto also had a grid made that fits perfectly on the ‘braai’. Since we really enjoy cooking food on the fire, it is therefore important that we have a ‘braai’ that meets all our requirements.

Our small (yet effective) ‘braai’

Electricity:

Wild camping normally means no electricity. We had two camping fridges (one for freezing and the other for keeping food cold). Solar panels and batteries are the solution to make sure that meat stays frozen – and beer cold. Berto placed one solar panel (120W) on the external battery to keep the freezer in our diner tent cold, and another solar panel (240W) connected to the camping trailer’s battery for the other fridge. This battery charged lights, as well as our laptops (I will explain later in this post why we used our laptops).

120W solar panel (left) and 240W solar panel (right)

Solar panels at our campsite

The day-to-day house (tent) chores:

When you go camping for two weeks, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no chores. The dishes still need to be done, and so does the laundry (unless, of course, you pack enough clothes for two weeks – something we never do, the less, the better). And, of course, we also have to eat.

However, these things are much more enjoyable to do when you have a beautiful view. There are quite a few handy camping washing machines for sale in outdoor shops, but I really enjoyed the old-fashioned method of hand washing while sitting on a rock and staring over the Atlantic Ocean.

Preparing food at the camping trailer’s kitchen

Doing the dishes with a view

Laundry day while wild camping

Wardrobe for clothes:

While we’re talking about laundry, there’s something else I want to share with you. Our camping trailer has a compartment with shelves and pouches. This is usually where I store bedding and rechargeable lights when we go on weekend trips, but on our two-week-long camp, this area worked perfectly as a wardrobe.

The door to our wardrobe on our camping trailer

Shelves and storage pouches for our clothes

Toiletries and other goodies:

There is also a door with pouches where we can store sunscreen lotion, mosquito repellent, toilet paper, and batteries. And I love our ‘His and Hers’ toiletry bags that can easily be clipped off to take with us to the shower.

A very handy section in our camping trailer for toiletries, etc.

Ice Ice Bay:

I mentioned in previous posts that Berto bought an ice machine for camping. What’s better than drinking a glass of wine chilled with a few ice cubes next to the ocean on a hot day? The ice machine really came in handy, and I made quite a few bags of ice which I stored in the freezer until we needed them. How luxurious is that for wild camping?

Making ice while wild camping

Outdoor solar lanterns:

With the solar panels charging the batteries during the day, we had enough light in the evenings when we were in the diner- and rooftop tents. But when we switched off all the lights late in the evening, it was quite dark. I brought a few outdoor solar lanterns from home that automatically switched on when it gets dark. These provided enough light in case we needed to get up during the night. It was actually so great that I sometimes stayed longer than necessary outside during the night just to watch the lovely glow provided by the lanterns.

Outdoor lanterns at strategic places on our campsite

We had enough light while wild camping

Entertainment:

We went on long beach walks (more about this in a future post), but there were also times when we just relaxed at our tent. We mostly read a book (when we weren’t sitting by the campfire). But there were also a few times when we watched our favourite movies. And sometimes we listened to music, especially when we were preparing food. Our portable DVD writer and laptops worked well for this (that’s why we had to charge our laptops). Imagine, in a time when modern technology is thriving, we took out DVDs and CDs – that really sounds old school now, right?

Listening to music and watching our favourite movies

Friends:

Most of the time it was just Berto and me at the campsite. But over New Year’s weekend, our friends, Frans and Fiela, joined us for a few days. Frans’s brother and his wife, Maans and Surita, also dropped in just for a day. It was nice to have company for a few days and we had enjoyable times around the fire.

Frans and Fiela’s tent completed our wild camping setup

Frans & Fiela and Surita

Surita also showed me that you can crochet while camping – it looks so therapeutic and I wondered if it might be something I can learn to do too. Oh, and it’s great when a friend knows you as well as Fiela knows me – when they were packing up, she gave me my favourite chocolate.

Friends visiting us over New Year’s weekend

Pepermint Crisp – my favourite chocolate

Friends, Neighbours … and then just the two of us:                                  

Apart from our friends, we were also lucky to have wonderful camping neighbours. It was interesting to hear how far most of them had travelled – while it was just a five-hour trip for us, most of them had driven for two days to get to Waterval here on the West Coast. After everybody left, it was just Berto and me who stayed behind for the last three days of our holiday. Although it was still enjoyable, we missed the conversations we had with our friends and camping neighbours.

Just us and our tents

Though we’ve missed everybody, we still had those views

Sitting next to the fire and enjoying the views

Last fire of our wild camping adventure

I can’t help but conclude again with one of those incredibly beautiful sunsets at Waterval. The last evening’s sunset was probably the most beautiful, and we watched in awe as the colours constantly changed.

Our last sunset

In our next post, we’re going to a very remote place with an amazing ‘padstal’ (farm stall), and we’ll share our wild camping food with you. If you want to read about this, click here.