Being Earth Day tomorrow, I thought I would share how my technology-loving husband has learnt to co-exist with nature.

My hubby Trev, has formed an unholy alliance with my father and betwixt them and their group of mates they organise ‘mancations’.

For the uninitiated, Mancations are man-only vacations – where they kayak, canoe and camp in semi-remote locations.

They often go out in a canoe to try to catch food – I think they call it fishing – but they never catch anything, so I simply call it canoeing.

In the beginning I thought there was a serious conflict of interest for my hubby Trevor between trying to be ‘nature boy’ and his absolute love of all things that go ‘beep’.

But he quickly reconciled this by perfectly blending his two loves.

Trev keeps everyone at home informed about their mancation mis-adventures via Twitter and facebook. One notable event captured on twitter: ‘During the night I think a wild dog sniffed my head through the tent’.

But wait, it gets better, the mancationers have rigged up a helmet-cam and they video their exploits and share these, without shame, on YouTube. I have included a link below and as you can see they are quite the experts… in what NOT to do.

While on mancations Trev often checks the internet for weather information, especially rainfall and river heights. They also watch what they consider ‘blokey’ shows  via Trev’s iPad – I think they have watched the nine episodes of Ripping Yarns way too many times because they all come back repeating line after line of it.

photo - Mancationeers posing

On their return, I have to endure tedious tales about their adventures. It is at times like these that I often think of Ripping Yarns’ good old Eric Othwaite who said: “It were hard to accept I were boring. Especially with my interest in rainfall.”

I am very interested to know if this ‘mancation’ behaviour is normal – please let me know to what extent you go to in sharing your holiday experiences with others.

Related links:

• My father kayaking on mancation
• Earth Day website