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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Off-Road Touring Life Podcast, proudly brought to you by Trackmark.
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So Trackmark offers quality woven patches covering all your destinations from the top of Australia to the Simpson Desert all the way down into the Victorian High Country.
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So use the discount code OFTL7 at the checkout, and you'll get yourself a little discount.
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Alright, so today's episode is all about how I find campsites, whether I'm travelling in the outback, Victorian High Country, or even locally.
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What I do and some tips and advice I could offer you guys if you're looking for that campsite that might be off the beaten track a little bit.
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So let's take a little step back quite a few years.
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So I've been camping for all my life for many, many years, and this all stems back to an OSTO camping with my dad, mum, and my brother and my sister.
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So my dad always had a big role of paper maps, topographic maps, predominantly in the Victorian High Country.
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And on those maps, not only does it show all your contour lines, track names, etc., but it also shows rivers.
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So we often camped by river somewhere, whether it was down the King River and Pineapple Flat, even up at Lake Cobbler, areas around Jamison, such as Granny's Flat, is a pretty popular one, but these days Granny's Flat itself, which is not far out of the town of Jamison, is closed during the winter time, and we used to camp in there in the winter time, but now it's seasonally closed.
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But yeah, you used to be able to get into there in the depths of winter, which wasn't too far up the road from the family farm in Jamison.
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So by finding these little spots, going out for a bit of a forward drive and stuff, you're always coming across awesome areas.
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Some other areas further afield, we would go into your key sort of more well-known locations, such as into Wanangata and across through to Lakola, Cali to Onya River, like down Butcher Country Track and into those spots.
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Now, when you're looking for those sort of spots back in those days, it was really uh go find a spot and go seeking new areas because it wasn't online and as readily as available as what it is now.
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So times were definitely different back in those days.
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I say back in those days, because you had to actually earn your spots a lot more to go find these areas, you know, even across King Billy track was a much lesser known track, and the tracks back then weren't as well groomed, I would say, as what they are now.
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There's even old file, like old tracks you can see where they used to duck up over the top of the hills, which made them a lot steeper, and now there's a lot of cuttings around it.
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So times have definitely changed, and the accessibility, I think, is a lot easier, even with the technology of four-wheel drives now.
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Back then we were in short wheel-based land cruisers, troop carriers, FJ-55s, a whole different range of uh Toyotas.
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So once we found a good spots, we often uh went back to those spots quite regularly.
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Mitchell's flat on the upper reaches of the uh Jamison and Howqua River area was a very popular spot we used to go into a lot, and heading into there when it's wet is a pretty interesting time.
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So very rarely we'd go to your sort of your more mainstream spots, say such as Sheepyard Flat, etc.
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We were actually heading right into the high country where you're engaging forward drive.
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A lot of the things you hear now, people online talking and uh a few other podcasts saying that forward drives are more used just for heading into like a couple of fishing spots, this and that, not so much for the forward driving itself, but we were using ours, or our family were using ours for forward driving, so it'd be nothing to head out for a couple of days, two, three, four days actual forward driving as more of a uh activity, not so much as heading into a location, but you get up early, roll your swag, head out for driving for the day to a new location, roll your swag up, and keep going again.
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So, yeah, we were out there doing that all back then, and I do have quite a few photos that uh even mum keeps digging them up all these years later of us from back even in the late 70s with photos.
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We got super eight footage of us in the snowfall driving back in the shorter as well.
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So, as time progressed, obviously we retraced our steps a lot, and now with the advent of uh obviously the internet and social media, these campsites are pretty much at your fingertips, so you've only got to search a location and it would come up.
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So I still use paper nap paper maps myself when looking at areas, particularly if you're doing more trips uh into the outback areas, etc.
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But with the advent of social media and the internet and internet mapping or tracking and mapping and say Yahema map sort of setup, you can easily plan a trip route quite easily by using that.
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And a lot of those icons are shown on those maps of campsites, points of interest, cliffs, valleys, rivers, and all those sort of features that you know you might want to check out, waterfalls, even challenging four drive tracks of rock steps and ledges, and that are all marked a lot on those maps.
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So another idea that uh you could do to sort of plat plot your trip along certain areas, even if you started on a paper map, and then you go to your digital maps after that, and then you can plot your course or your your route that you want to do.
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By doing that, you will probably feel a little bit more organized, and it might sort of take a bit of the fun out of finding different tracks, but you don't have to stick to what you're doing, you can definitely uh alter where you're going and through there.
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And if you've got a group of mates, you can always talk about different options of uh where you want to go and different things.
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You might be more interested in doing some river camping.
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Sometimes the best thing to do for that is jump on Google Maps and look for a location before you go in.
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Now, I think some of the best river spots are often at the end of a track, so you might see a track that doesn't go anywhere, and next thing you know, you've just arrived at a river crossing or a river or a dead end.
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Often those tracks you'll find at the bottom of a deep valley, and you don't get a lot of sunlight.
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It might be one of those tracks that are a bit tougher than others because it's not necessarily always used, and that means a big bonus of uh the track not being used, it means there's less likely chance of someone being in there and taking that spot, and those spots are often you'll find where only enough room for three, four vehicles, maybe five vehicles in there, and sometimes they're sought after if some people have had their eye on them, or it's a spot that people frequent and head down.
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Another idea to do is if you're looking, say, camping along the Murray River, for an example, which is a very popular camping spot, it's one of my favorites, particularly through the winter time.
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The weather's really nice up there.
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You just sit on Google Maps and you can follow the river, and along there, there's countless different spots to camp locations.
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You can have spots where you're high up above the river or beach sites.
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I'm not going to give you exactly all my favourite ones by name, but by doing that, you can easily find your spots to uh pull up for a few days.
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Different seasons give you all different sorts of uh feel and locations.
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Often people say they're best campsites of when the weather's been good.
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But think outside the shoulder season as well when you're looking to find those campsites.
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It might be worth heading further into the into the bush or further into the outback through the winter time, even though the outbacks are a lot wider.
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But if you pull up to spots like Dalhousie Springs, which I have before, you're going to find you're pretty much sleeping on top of each other.
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It doesn't feel like you're in central Australia at all.
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You've pretty much got people right next to you.
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It's very much like a camp uh caravan park sort of set up with uh campsites all around you there.
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So if you're looking for that sort of wild outpack experience, go through there and check it out.
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But you might not want to camp there.
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We just did one night there after doing a big trip on the 640k loop through the desert, and we just popped into there on the way back because it was getting on dark.
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But it doesn't always mean that camping in those popular spots is a negative, sometimes the positive is so talk to other people, talk to workmates, jump on your socials, watch a few YouTube videos.
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Some people don't give away campsites of where they go.
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I give away a few, but I don't give away all my secrets purely because I feel by finding like when I say secrets, I mean the naming of different spots.
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I've been asked quite a few times for different spots, but sometimes you like to keep them keep them to yourself.
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You want to keep it a bit more private, which gives you that, like I mentioned before, that sense of adventure.
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Like having the sense of adventure out travelling around, it feels like that you're actually on a holiday and not so much of a planned dotted trip out.
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So, and be flexible as well.
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You might get to a campsite and go, this isn't any good.
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So you've done your planning, have an A, B, and C situation.
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You might need a campsite that has amenities such as drop toilets and fire pits and things like that, which is perfectly fine.
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There is so many of those, you've just got to jump onto a park's say a park to Victoria, because obviously I'm based in Victoria.
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Jump on that.
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I've done the same when I've travelled up through New South Wales and Queensland.
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It's quite easy just to put an area in and find your different locations.
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Also, keep in mind if you're travelling, if you're looking for these campsites, whether you need you can have a dog in there or no dog, um, sometimes does limit where I go because I have a Calpie with me.
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She might, there's trips where she can't come, so you do have to unfortunately leave her at home at that time, which is never never really any good.
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But yeah, sometimes you have to if you want to go check out some of these spots.
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If you're looking for spots that uh have a walking track at the start of it, it might be a trailhead somewhere.
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You might be looking at doing a hike in the high country, and you go, I'm gonna camp nearby here.
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Don't necessarily, as a hot tip, you found a nice hike you want to do, let's say Callie's Hut, and in that region at the top of the uh Howard High Plains, don't camp at the trailhead if you don't want to.
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There is a plethora of other areas you can camp nearby, maybe find a little spot off by yourself or with your group of hiking mates, and in the morning you just head to the trailhead, just if you want that bit of privacy, so you don't always have to stay in those highly sought-after designated areas, especially if you want to have a rest before you go on a hike and have a good night's sleep, etc.
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But by having the uh rooftop maps, which is my preferred rooftop map, uh my paper map set up, you have a list of areas that's easy, clear to read, it's uh clear defined lines of state and national parks.
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So if you are travelling with pets, obviously you've got to adhere to those rules, and the rivers are often dictated at the border for uh state and national park.
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An example is long along the King River.
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So one side of the river's national park, the other side of the river's state park.
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So just be aware of that in those areas.
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That's where it's good to have a paper map and see a full overview.
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You might look at an Instagram post or a Facebook page and go, yep, I'm going here, and you drive all the way in, only to realise that it's a national park and you're travelling with your dog and it's sort of a no-go in those areas.
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So some of those posts as well that only show the highlight, the best of the best.
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Very rarely you'll see the side of the um campsite that might be dirt and mud and boggy.
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If that's not what you want, you might be disappointed when you've made the effort to drive in there.
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So you can do a bit of homework, and like I said, that heads back to being flexible.
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By being flexible, it actually improves your whole camping experience.
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You might get somewhere late one Friday night, do a basic setup, say after work you've driven a few hours up into the bush or however far it takes you to do it, and then the next morning you find, yep, I'm gonna pack up and move to another spot, so you might just do a quick overnighter at maybe a more popular spot.
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I've done that in the past, I've just turned up after work at the campsite like 9, 9.30 at night, and got up early the next morning and made my way out to a more private, secluded sort of uh bush campsite.
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So by doing that, having that flexibility, I didn't feel like I was getting up in the morning and having people all over you next to you for the whole day.
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So I'd sort of like those more sort of quieter campsites if I can, and at times it's unavoidable, you're gonna have other people around, and don't be put off, especially like by Christmas and times like that to travel.
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Sometimes some people can only get the Christmas period off, and if you're looking for campsites, sometimes these popular sites aren't don't surprisingly don't get that busy.
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So generally, if you need a four-wheel drive to get in, it won't be that busy.
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If you're looking for a campsite and a two-wheel drive vehicle can get in, that's when you're going to find it's getting busier.
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Four-wheel drive and camping has definitely got a lot busier in the last five, ten years or so.
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I've had four-wheel drives for over two decades now, and I've definitely seen an improvement, or not an improvement, an increase, sorry, of the amount of forward drives on the road.
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They're now becoming just your normal daily car where they used to be just your recreational sort of vehicle.
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But um so when you're out there and you're looking for these campsites, a few little tips to do when you find your campsite, check for trees.
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Don't obviously camp under old trees, gum trees, red gum trees, particularly if you're on the Murray River.
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We've heard and seen a few come down.
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I had one come down one year, and it actually we grabbed me and a mate were sitting there, and we'd both jumped up and it actually crushed our table where we'd just been sitting there in an afternoon.
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It was a perfectly still day, and that's often when those limbs seem to drop out of the trees.
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Trees seem to rip out of the ground by the tree roots on a windy day, and limbs just seem to fall out of a tree on a perfectly still day.
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So I have seen it happen quite a few times.
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So be a bit smart about where you might set up your campsite as well.
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And if you do need the toilets and drop toilets and that, that's when you're going to find those campsites to be super super popular, and you'll often find that those ones are popular when they're close to a close to a town.
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So out of Mansfield, Jamison, even Lakola, Dargo, etc., you'll find that those towns create obviously get people in.
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So if you do go through and you top up with fuel and stuff like that, a lot of people seem to stay close to those towns, and they're good, they're good to do it sometimes.
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Like if you've got a few kids or a couple of kids and you want to socialise and stuff like that, it's perfectly fine because other kids they'll soon find plenty of entertainment for each other.
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So by doing that, speaking to other people, if the kids are at school, maybe talk to some parents there, other families to find out if you know different camping locations.
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You've only got to talk to someone at a servo if they're filling up on a Friday.
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I'll wear you guys off to, and they might give you an idea for a uh different camp location.
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Don't go stalking them at the server station, of course, but uh yeah, often people are happy to talk about their next trips and where they're going or where they've been.
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So it's very similar when you're looking at doing outback or road trips.
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There's a lot of different spots in the past.
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Finding campsites can sometimes feel a bit tricky, but we've spent months and months on the road at a time, and you'd be surprised how often we just pulled into a gravel pit on the side of the road, particularly Western Australia, it's quite good to do that with our soft floor camper trailer.
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And the kids were quite young, and we were travelling around, we're like, oh, this will do.
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So we just pull into an area with a gravel pit and set up camp there, and it's obviously free, and you've got to be self-sufficient because those sites basically are just your raw, raw campsite off the side of the road.
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And make sure you leave those sites cleaner than what you found at.
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So this isn't really a tip for finding a campsite, but if you are looking for one, a clean site is a good campsite.
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So if you find the more popular sites, you're gonna generally find rubbish and things there.
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So if you roll into the campsite and it's full of rubbish, you're gonna go, This is this is no good.
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This is absolute what am I doing here?
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So that's the last thing you want.
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So when you leave your campsite, leave it clean and how you would like to find it when you arrived.
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So make sure you got your rubbish bags and pick up pick up anything that's blown around.
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And if it's a bit windy and you see that serviette or napkin or something fly away, go pick it up.
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Don't just let it fly away into the bushes, into the trees.
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By keeping it clean, we've got all these different spots that opens up.
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Last thing you want to do is get to an area and you turn up and it's closed for whatever reason.
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But yeah, any of those gravel pit sort of spots you often find if you're particularly over west, if you're driving, and even here, you'll see this two-wheel drivetrack head off down the side.
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You can often find campsites down there.
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One thing that's quite odd though, when we've crossed another board in the past, we've had people we've thought, oh yeah, we're a fair way off the road, and I'm sure they must have seen a light or something and they come and camp.
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I don't understand it myself, but within 15-20 metres from you, it's like they must think safety in numbers or something like that.
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But um yeah, if you're looking for a bit of a private spot, just try and keep out of sight, out of mind, sort of thing, and then you're not going to attract other people.
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It's amazing how close people think it's comfortable to camp.
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Some of you guys might think it's different, but we've been in some campsites and you can literally touch the person next to you because they just crammed them in for unnecessary reasons.
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But I'll go into that in another podcast when I'll talk about some of our big trips and travelling that we've done.
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By getting yourself also a camps uh guide book, a big map book, uh, the free camps books, really good.
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I've had a few of those, and the reason I like those as well, because they in different regions, yeah.
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P open a map of where you're traveling, look at a number, uh campsite 467, look at that on the map, go to the back, and then you look at the stats or out, sorry, the what facilities are in that campsite.
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So that will have whether you've got phone service, whether you've got internet service, bins, toilets, fireplaces, car parking, whether you can fit a caravan in there, pretty much how big the campsite is.
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So just off the top of my head, that's seven or eight things that may tick the box.
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If phone service is necessary for you, that's you know, perfect if you can use those books for using that.
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Another good spots to look for campsites if you're passing through towns, um if you're on the road transit bits, is uh showgrounds at different country towns.
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So often it's a ten dollar or five dollar donation to the showground, and in peak times you'll find there's a cat caretaker at those sites, so you just go in, set up, and someone will come around later that evening and they'll collect their donation, which goes back into the upkeep of the town.
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And we've done that last year when we went up to New South and did the bridal track on our way up to Bathurst, and when we did that, we got up into there, and the caretaker came around and it kept all the toilets and stuff, went back into the toilets, toilet paper and the cleaner, and keeping all that sort of area clean.
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So by doing uh putting back into some of the towns on the way passing through is another good way of uh finding those campsites.
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Alright, so I might wrap this one up here, just a short one, just on a few tips of uh when you're looking for campsites and how I find campsites.
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So, yeah, it's changed a lot over the years, and it's definitely easier.
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And if you want to keep those campsites a secret to yourself, I highly recommend it.
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:37.519
So I'll just uh want to again thank Trackmark for jumping on as a podcast sponsor.
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So for your quality woven patches, jump on to trackmark.com and remember to use the discount OFTL7.
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All right, you'll be hearing from me again soon.
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Until next time, cheers.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Off-Road Touring Life Podcast, proudly brought to you by Trackmark.
00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:26.719
So Trackmark offers quality woven patches covering all your destinations from the top of Australia to the Simpson Desert all the way down into the Victorian High Country.
00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:34.159
So use the discount code OFTL7 at the checkout, and you'll get yourself a little discount.
00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:44.719
Alright, so today's episode is all about how I find campsites, whether I'm travelling in the outback, Victorian High Country, or even locally.
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What I do and some tips and advice I could offer you guys if you're looking for that campsite that might be off the beaten track a little bit.
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So let's take a little step back quite a few years.
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So I've been camping for all my life for many, many years, and this all stems back to an OSTO camping with my dad, mum, and my brother and my sister.
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So my dad always had a big role of paper maps, topographic maps, predominantly in the Victorian High Country.
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And on those maps, not only does it show all your contour lines, track names, etc., but it also shows rivers.
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So we often camped by river somewhere, whether it was down the King River and Pineapple Flat, even up at Lake Cobbler, areas around Jamison, such as Granny's Flat, is a pretty popular one, but these days Granny's Flat itself, which is not far out of the town of Jamison, is closed during the winter time, and we used to camp in there in the winter time, but now it's seasonally closed.
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But yeah, you used to be able to get into there in the depths of winter, which wasn't too far up the road from the family farm in Jamison.
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So by finding these little spots, going out for a bit of a forward drive and stuff, you're always coming across awesome areas.
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Some other areas further afield, we would go into your key sort of more well-known locations, such as into Wanangata and across through to Lakola, Cali to Onya River, like down Butcher Country Track and into those spots.
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Now, when you're looking for those sort of spots back in those days, it was really uh go find a spot and go seeking new areas because it wasn't online and as readily as available as what it is now.
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So times were definitely different back in those days.
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I say back in those days, because you had to actually earn your spots a lot more to go find these areas, you know, even across King Billy track was a much lesser known track, and the tracks back then weren't as well groomed, I would say, as what they are now.
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There's even old file, like old tracks you can see where they used to duck up over the top of the hills, which made them a lot steeper, and now there's a lot of cuttings around it.
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So times have definitely changed, and the accessibility, I think, is a lot easier, even with the technology of four-wheel drives now.
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Back then we were in short wheel-based land cruisers, troop carriers, FJ-55s, a whole different range of uh Toyotas.
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So once we found a good spots, we often uh went back to those spots quite regularly.
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Mitchell's flat on the upper reaches of the uh Jamison and Howqua River area was a very popular spot we used to go into a lot, and heading into there when it's wet is a pretty interesting time.
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So very rarely we'd go to your sort of your more mainstream spots, say such as Sheepyard Flat, etc.
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We were actually heading right into the high country where you're engaging forward drive.
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A lot of the things you hear now, people online talking and uh a few other podcasts saying that forward drives are more used just for heading into like a couple of fishing spots, this and that, not so much for the forward driving itself, but we were using ours, or our family were using ours for forward driving, so it'd be nothing to head out for a couple of days, two, three, four days actual forward driving as more of a uh activity, not so much as heading into a location, but you get up early, roll your swag, head out for driving for the day to a new location, roll your swag up, and keep going again.
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So, yeah, we were out there doing that all back then, and I do have quite a few photos that uh even mum keeps digging them up all these years later of us from back even in the late 70s with photos.
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We got super eight footage of us in the snowfall driving back in the shorter as well.
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So, as time progressed, obviously we retraced our steps a lot, and now with the advent of uh obviously the internet and social media, these campsites are pretty much at your fingertips, so you've only got to search a location and it would come up.
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So I still use paper nap paper maps myself when looking at areas, particularly if you're doing more trips uh into the outback areas, etc.
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But with the advent of social media and the internet and internet mapping or tracking and mapping and say Yahema map sort of setup, you can easily plan a trip route quite easily by using that.
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And a lot of those icons are shown on those maps of campsites, points of interest, cliffs, valleys, rivers, and all those sort of features that you know you might want to check out, waterfalls, even challenging four drive tracks of rock steps and ledges, and that are all marked a lot on those maps.
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So another idea that uh you could do to sort of plat plot your trip along certain areas, even if you started on a paper map, and then you go to your digital maps after that, and then you can plot your course or your your route that you want to do.
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By doing that, you will probably feel a little bit more organized, and it might sort of take a bit of the fun out of finding different tracks, but you don't have to stick to what you're doing, you can definitely uh alter where you're going and through there.
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And if you've got a group of mates, you can always talk about different options of uh where you want to go and different things.
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You might be more interested in doing some river camping.
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Sometimes the best thing to do for that is jump on Google Maps and look for a location before you go in.
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Now, I think some of the best river spots are often at the end of a track, so you might see a track that doesn't go anywhere, and next thing you know, you've just arrived at a river crossing or a river or a dead end.
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Often those tracks you'll find at the bottom of a deep valley, and you don't get a lot of sunlight.
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It might be one of those tracks that are a bit tougher than others because it's not necessarily always used, and that means a big bonus of uh the track not being used, it means there's less likely chance of someone being in there and taking that spot, and those spots are often you'll find where only enough room for three, four vehicles, maybe five vehicles in there, and sometimes they're sought after if some people have had their eye on them, or it's a spot that people frequent and head down.
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Another idea to do is if you're looking, say, camping along the Murray River, for an example, which is a very popular camping spot, it's one of my favorites, particularly through the winter time.
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The weather's really nice up there.
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You just sit on Google Maps and you can follow the river, and along there, there's countless different spots to camp locations.
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You can have spots where you're high up above the river or beach sites.
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I'm not going to give you exactly all my favourite ones by name, but by doing that, you can easily find your spots to uh pull up for a few days.
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Different seasons give you all different sorts of uh feel and locations.
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Often people say they're best campsites of when the weather's been good.
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But think outside the shoulder season as well when you're looking to find those campsites.
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It might be worth heading further into the into the bush or further into the outback through the winter time, even though the outbacks are a lot wider.
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But if you pull up to spots like Dalhousie Springs, which I have before, you're going to find you're pretty much sleeping on top of each other.
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It doesn't feel like you're in central Australia at all.
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You've pretty much got people right next to you.
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It's very much like a camp uh caravan park sort of set up with uh campsites all around you there.
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So if you're looking for that sort of wild outpack experience, go through there and check it out.
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But you might not want to camp there.
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We just did one night there after doing a big trip on the 640k loop through the desert, and we just popped into there on the way back because it was getting on dark.
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But it doesn't always mean that camping in those popular spots is a negative, sometimes the positive is so talk to other people, talk to workmates, jump on your socials, watch a few YouTube videos.
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Some people don't give away campsites of where they go.
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I give away a few, but I don't give away all my secrets purely because I feel by finding like when I say secrets, I mean the naming of different spots.
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I've been asked quite a few times for different spots, but sometimes you like to keep them keep them to yourself.
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You want to keep it a bit more private, which gives you that, like I mentioned before, that sense of adventure.
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Like having the sense of adventure out travelling around, it feels like that you're actually on a holiday and not so much of a planned dotted trip out.
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So, and be flexible as well.
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You might get to a campsite and go, this isn't any good.
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So you've done your planning, have an A, B, and C situation.
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You might need a campsite that has amenities such as drop toilets and fire pits and things like that, which is perfectly fine.
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There is so many of those, you've just got to jump onto a park's say a park to Victoria, because obviously I'm based in Victoria.
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Jump on that.
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I've done the same when I've travelled up through New South Wales and Queensland.
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It's quite easy just to put an area in and find your different locations.
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Also, keep in mind if you're travelling, if you're looking for these campsites, whether you need you can have a dog in there or no dog, um, sometimes does limit where I go because I have a Calpie with me.
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She might, there's trips where she can't come, so you do have to unfortunately leave her at home at that time, which is never never really any good.
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But yeah, sometimes you have to if you want to go check out some of these spots.
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If you're looking for spots that uh have a walking track at the start of it, it might be a trailhead somewhere.
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You might be looking at doing a hike in the high country, and you go, I'm gonna camp nearby here.
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Don't necessarily, as a hot tip, you found a nice hike you want to do, let's say Callie's Hut, and in that region at the top of the uh Howard High Plains, don't camp at the trailhead if you don't want to.
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There is a plethora of other areas you can camp nearby, maybe find a little spot off by yourself or with your group of hiking mates, and in the morning you just head to the trailhead, just if you want that bit of privacy, so you don't always have to stay in those highly sought-after designated areas, especially if you want to have a rest before you go on a hike and have a good night's sleep, etc.
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But by having the uh rooftop maps, which is my preferred rooftop map, uh my paper map set up, you have a list of areas that's easy, clear to read, it's uh clear defined lines of state and national parks.
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So if you are travelling with pets, obviously you've got to adhere to those rules, and the rivers are often dictated at the border for uh state and national park.
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An example is long along the King River.
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So one side of the river's national park, the other side of the river's state park.
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So just be aware of that in those areas.
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That's where it's good to have a paper map and see a full overview.
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You might look at an Instagram post or a Facebook page and go, yep, I'm going here, and you drive all the way in, only to realise that it's a national park and you're travelling with your dog and it's sort of a no-go in those areas.
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So some of those posts as well that only show the highlight, the best of the best.
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Very rarely you'll see the side of the um campsite that might be dirt and mud and boggy.
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If that's not what you want, you might be disappointed when you've made the effort to drive in there.
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So you can do a bit of homework, and like I said, that heads back to being flexible.
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By being flexible, it actually improves your whole camping experience.
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You might get somewhere late one Friday night, do a basic setup, say after work you've driven a few hours up into the bush or however far it takes you to do it, and then the next morning you find, yep, I'm gonna pack up and move to another spot, so you might just do a quick overnighter at maybe a more popular spot.
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I've done that in the past, I've just turned up after work at the campsite like 9, 9.30 at night, and got up early the next morning and made my way out to a more private, secluded sort of uh bush campsite.
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So by doing that, having that flexibility, I didn't feel like I was getting up in the morning and having people all over you next to you for the whole day.
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So I'd sort of like those more sort of quieter campsites if I can, and at times it's unavoidable, you're gonna have other people around, and don't be put off, especially like by Christmas and times like that to travel.
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Sometimes some people can only get the Christmas period off, and if you're looking for campsites, sometimes these popular sites aren't don't surprisingly don't get that busy.
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So generally, if you need a four-wheel drive to get in, it won't be that busy.
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If you're looking for a campsite and a two-wheel drive vehicle can get in, that's when you're going to find it's getting busier.
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Four-wheel drive and camping has definitely got a lot busier in the last five, ten years or so.
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I've had four-wheel drives for over two decades now, and I've definitely seen an improvement, or not an improvement, an increase, sorry, of the amount of forward drives on the road.
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They're now becoming just your normal daily car where they used to be just your recreational sort of vehicle.
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But um so when you're out there and you're looking for these campsites, a few little tips to do when you find your campsite, check for trees.
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Don't obviously camp under old trees, gum trees, red gum trees, particularly if you're on the Murray River.
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We've heard and seen a few come down.
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I had one come down one year, and it actually we grabbed me and a mate were sitting there, and we'd both jumped up and it actually crushed our table where we'd just been sitting there in an afternoon.
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It was a perfectly still day, and that's often when those limbs seem to drop out of the trees.
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Trees seem to rip out of the ground by the tree roots on a windy day, and limbs just seem to fall out of a tree on a perfectly still day.
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So I have seen it happen quite a few times.
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So be a bit smart about where you might set up your campsite as well.
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And if you do need the toilets and drop toilets and that, that's when you're going to find those campsites to be super super popular, and you'll often find that those ones are popular when they're close to a close to a town.
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So out of Mansfield, Jamison, even Lakola, Dargo, etc., you'll find that those towns create obviously get people in.
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So if you do go through and you top up with fuel and stuff like that, a lot of people seem to stay close to those towns, and they're good, they're good to do it sometimes.
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Like if you've got a few kids or a couple of kids and you want to socialise and stuff like that, it's perfectly fine because other kids they'll soon find plenty of entertainment for each other.
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So by doing that, speaking to other people, if the kids are at school, maybe talk to some parents there, other families to find out if you know different camping locations.
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You've only got to talk to someone at a servo if they're filling up on a Friday.
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I'll wear you guys off to, and they might give you an idea for a uh different camp location.
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Don't go stalking them at the server station, of course, but uh yeah, often people are happy to talk about their next trips and where they're going or where they've been.
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So it's very similar when you're looking at doing outback or road trips.
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There's a lot of different spots in the past.
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Finding campsites can sometimes feel a bit tricky, but we've spent months and months on the road at a time, and you'd be surprised how often we just pulled into a gravel pit on the side of the road, particularly Western Australia, it's quite good to do that with our soft floor camper trailer.
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And the kids were quite young, and we were travelling around, we're like, oh, this will do.
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So we just pull into an area with a gravel pit and set up camp there, and it's obviously free, and you've got to be self-sufficient because those sites basically are just your raw, raw campsite off the side of the road.
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And make sure you leave those sites cleaner than what you found at.
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So this isn't really a tip for finding a campsite, but if you are looking for one, a clean site is a good campsite.
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So if you find the more popular sites, you're gonna generally find rubbish and things there.
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So if you roll into the campsite and it's full of rubbish, you're gonna go, This is this is no good.
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This is absolute what am I doing here?
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So that's the last thing you want.
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So when you leave your campsite, leave it clean and how you would like to find it when you arrived.
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So make sure you got your rubbish bags and pick up pick up anything that's blown around.
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And if it's a bit windy and you see that serviette or napkin or something fly away, go pick it up.
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Don't just let it fly away into the bushes, into the trees.
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By keeping it clean, we've got all these different spots that opens up.
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Last thing you want to do is get to an area and you turn up and it's closed for whatever reason.
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But yeah, any of those gravel pit sort of spots you often find if you're particularly over west, if you're driving, and even here, you'll see this two-wheel drivetrack head off down the side.
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You can often find campsites down there.
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One thing that's quite odd though, when we've crossed another board in the past, we've had people we've thought, oh yeah, we're a fair way off the road, and I'm sure they must have seen a light or something and they come and camp.
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I don't understand it myself, but within 15-20 metres from you, it's like they must think safety in numbers or something like that.
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But um yeah, if you're looking for a bit of a private spot, just try and keep out of sight, out of mind, sort of thing, and then you're not going to attract other people.
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It's amazing how close people think it's comfortable to camp.
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Some of you guys might think it's different, but we've been in some campsites and you can literally touch the person next to you because they just crammed them in for unnecessary reasons.
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But I'll go into that in another podcast when I'll talk about some of our big trips and travelling that we've done.
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By getting yourself also a camps uh guide book, a big map book, uh, the free camps books, really good.
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I've had a few of those, and the reason I like those as well, because they in different regions, yeah.
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P open a map of where you're traveling, look at a number, uh campsite 467, look at that on the map, go to the back, and then you look at the stats or out, sorry, the what facilities are in that campsite.
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So that will have whether you've got phone service, whether you've got internet service, bins, toilets, fireplaces, car parking, whether you can fit a caravan in there, pretty much how big the campsite is.
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So just off the top of my head, that's seven or eight things that may tick the box.
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If phone service is necessary for you, that's you know, perfect if you can use those books for using that.
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Another good spots to look for campsites if you're passing through towns, um if you're on the road transit bits, is uh showgrounds at different country towns.
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So often it's a ten dollar or five dollar donation to the showground, and in peak times you'll find there's a cat caretaker at those sites, so you just go in, set up, and someone will come around later that evening and they'll collect their donation, which goes back into the upkeep of the town.
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And we've done that last year when we went up to New South and did the bridal track on our way up to Bathurst, and when we did that, we got up into there, and the caretaker came around and it kept all the toilets and stuff, went back into the toilets, toilet paper and the cleaner, and keeping all that sort of area clean.
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So by doing uh putting back into some of the towns on the way passing through is another good way of uh finding those campsites.
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Alright, so I might wrap this one up here, just a short one, just on a few tips of uh when you're looking for campsites and how I find campsites.
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So, yeah, it's changed a lot over the years, and it's definitely easier.
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And if you want to keep those campsites a secret to yourself, I highly recommend it.
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:37.519
So I'll just uh want to again thank Trackmark for jumping on as a podcast sponsor.
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So for your quality woven patches, jump on to trackmark.com and remember to use the discount OFTL7.
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All right, you'll be hearing from me again soon.
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Until next time, cheers.
