Have you heard of gramping? If you've got kids and parents, you're going to want to know about it.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my summer experiences as a kid.

I am not sure why. It may be because of the persistent heat waves that have gripped the southern states this year. It may be that I live in tropical Queensland and the heat, humidity and six month long summers are pretty much staple conversation here.

I suspect it is mainly because, as I watch my kids grow up, I am realising more and more that the kind of experiences I had during summer in my childhood and teenage years, are exactly the kind of experiences I want my kids to have.

We were lucky enough to grow up in a small town on the NSW/Victoria border, so summer for me consisted of getting home from school, changing into a pair of bathers and running down to the river for a good two hours of swimming before dinner.

Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by proudly powered by Aerogard and Mortein. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

As good as that was though, the summer holidays were the best. Dad would take a week off work and we would load up his old ute and head down to the river for a week away from the world.

This was no modern style of camping. There was no generator for the TV and electric fry pan. Our crude cooking appliances consisted of a fire and a small portable BBQ. Every couple of days Dad would have to drive into town to refresh the ice in the esky. The loo was a hole in the ground with a roll of toilet paper sitting on top of a used baked bean can. As the years went on we got really advanced and dad put a stool with an old toilet seat on it over the hole. We bathed in the river, never realising quite how ridiculous it was to wash our hair of a morning, then spend the entire day swimming and knee boarding behind the ’74 Merlin.

Anybody who knows the Murray, knows the futility of putting a fishing rod in. Yet every day we would get Dad to bait our lines and we’d listen and watch for any sign that a fish may have decided to have a nibble.

My three sisters and I would lay, crammed in our bright blue three man tent, our only defence against the incessant mosquitoes the trusty can of Aerogard and a well-timed slap, usually delivered quite happily by each other.

When I look back now, it really was quite idyllic. Dad still swears that they were some of the best times of his life.

So when I saw that Aerogard and Mortein has just launched The Gramping Association, I made a resolution. Next time we visit my parents, we are going gramping – camping with grandparents. Thirty years from now I want my kids to look back on their summers just as fondly as I do, but I want them to have something in there that I never did – grandparents. I want my sons to experience all the fun of camping and doing the things I did as a child with my parents, and I want my parents to experience all the fun of camping with young kids all over again.

The kids will love it, my parents will love it, and let’s face it, if it means I get just five minutes to sit back and read the latest gossip magazine (my dirty little camping secret), then I am going to love it too.

And the best part of gramping – if the tent gets just a little too squishy in the middle of the night, mum and dad have plenty of room in their luxurious caravan, and the kids love a sleepover!

Here are some examples of some super fun things you can do while camping:

Have you ever gone gramping? If so, who do you think has had the best time – you, the kids or your parents?