Monday, October 1, 2012

A mini break in the bush




 We got away for a few days over the Labour Day long weekend in New South Wales and headed south from Sydney for a couple of hours to Booderee National Park. I had been keen to stay at Green Patch campsite for some time after reading it is considered one of the best natural camp spots in the state. Obviously everyone else has heard this also. Last year in October I requested a site for Christmas time and received a big laugh down the telephone from the ranger who after getting over this very funny request told me I should have booked back in August! With this in mind, I called up earlier in July this year to book our spot for the October long weekend and was lucky enough to get in!


We got a nice secluded spot looking out to a bush gully with lots of shade. Lots of shade also meant lots of good branches above us where it seemed all the lorikeets and rosellas of southern NSW met to spend their daylight hours gossiping away. For those of you not familiar with Australian bird calls, they possess the opposite of a pleasant twitter and are more adept at screeching...in unison. They settled down by sundown  however, and this time brought out the quieter nocturnal wildlife. We were visited by brush tail possums carrying their joeys on their back, wallabies, kangaroos and bandicoots! They were all quite tame looking for scraps of food which we strictly did not provide (processed foods are not good for native wildlife either), so we let them get on their way and hoped we wouldn't have to get into any man versus beast battles with any of them if they tried to steal food from us.

 Although there is lots to do in the area, we really did take things nice and easy and spent much of our time enjoying the varied and beautiful natural scenery. The most physical we got was our daily walks to Green Patch beach  to lay on the lovely white fine sand and watch people's reactions to taking a dip in the very chilly Jervis Bay (it does warm up).




 
One of the best things about camping is that it's totally OK to spend half a day (or more) laying in your tent or a chair with cup holders doing absolutely nothing!

This blanket was a Christmas present from my partner's 94 year old Nan - Mrs D who has many talents that I admire.
 I'm not sure how a place becomes known as the best camping spot - but I have to say it was pretty good and I can see the allure especially during summer time when the water is warmer. Other pros to the campsite is that it is small (only 20 or so sites), it's close to a nice coastal village, there are proper toilets, running fresh water and hot showers - which really is pretty luxurious for a National Parks campsite. This will be on our list to head back one summer, making sure we book early!
 

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful. And I love that you bring nan's knitted blanket! Everyone needs a nan's knitted blanket to stay cosy in a tent. x

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    1. It really did come in handy as the nights got pretty chilly.

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  2. That looks beautiful! It's not a campsite I'd heard of before but I would love to go there one day.

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