Camping in Jervis Bay

Hyam's Beach in Jervis Bay

This past weekend we spearheaded an expedition to lovely Jervis Bay seeking out sunshine, smores, and the great outdoors. We were not disappointed with the results of the venture.

Jervis Bay is located a few hours south of Sydney here:

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Based on our previous experience of camping at Nelson's Bay, we were looking to camp in a place that was a little more remote. Our site in Jervis was a huge improvement in this direction. We were the only people in the campground one of the nights and our site had a firepit placed right on a lazy river. It was an idyllic scene.

The livin's easy

It is interesting camping in Australia. Obviously the same basic requirements of shelter, food, and water remain the same but everything else around you is different. So, Amy and I are found here doing the same things but surrounded by new trees, plants and animals. Instead of raccoons rummaging through our unguarded food and deer traipsing through our site, we have possums and kangaroos. It makes for an interesting, if not surreal experience whenever you step outside of your tent.

Trying to sneak up on our smore making


Their pouches are way stickier than they seem on TV

The people we were camping with were a mixed group. A couple from the UK, and Aussie, and another American. Although everyone had been camping before, we were appalled to learn that the people from outside of the US had never heard of smores before. This was something we swore to remedy. The were intrigued to learn that making and stuffing as many smores into your face was basically THE primary reason to go camping in the first place.

We had to improvide as best we could as they do not apparently sell graham crackers in Australia. Also, the only marshmallows we could find were mixed bags of regular and strawberry. Note: strawberry marshmallows are terrible. These deficiencies were compensated for however by the generally superior chocolate out here.

Smores rock

After a quick demonstration, our students were off, taking turns burning their hands and marshmallows as best they could. The firsts tastes of this strange American treat were joined with gasps of joy and pleasure and the smore was quickly given a permenant place in all future camping ventures.

We spent most of our waking hours on Saturday at a beautiful stretch of beach a few minutes from our campground. We laid out, played football/soccer, drank beer, and found a stray baby which we entertained until its parents came around to claim it.

Beach baby washed up on shore

James scoring a goal AND not spilling his beer

The weekend was capped off with some ballistic testing spearheaded by Kat and Webs who were resourceful enough to bring a 3 person water balloon launcher. We said goodbye to our campsite by launching a barrage of balloons as far as we could downstream.

Debs launches one into orbit

On the way home, we stopped off at a national park and took a hike. Here we brought out the ammo we had been saving for something special and launched what appeared to be a grapefruit which we pulled off a camp tree into the ocean. Take that Neptune!!!

Afterward, we made a second stop at a pretty sweet blowhole, took the short walk around and refueled with some pies and ice cream. We made it home for a sweet sunset and agreed to meet up later in the week to finish off the surplus beer. Speaking of which......

Mel was way more impressed than she let on

Blowhole in action

Interested in camping and survival?  Come check out The Bug Out Bag Guide.