This weekend we went on our first family camping trip to Bonnie Vale Campground in the Royal National Park. After driving for just over an hour, we had reached the park and within minutes we were in a dense forest with no signal for cell phones! Amazing that such a place exists so close to the city! The campsite is situated on the cast, near Bundeena, a small town near the centre of the park. It’s a beautiful location as the bay is very sheltered and the water level is low so the kids could walk out quite far into the ocean. Tomas had lots of practice swimming without his floatie because we knew he could touch the ground if he got tired.
We camped with our friends Vicky, Steve and their two kids, Sophie (4) and Audrey (1). The kids get along great and before long they were comfortable in the campground and were running around playing hide and seek in the trees. Another couple, Samantha and Vale, and their daughter, Ariel (4) joined us on Saturday which was great as the kids had plenty of playtime!
The kids also played with 3 boys that were camping next to us. Tomas was in heaven as he got to rumble with some big boys as two of them were 8 years old. The boys went fishing every night and morning and Tomas was more than curious about the fishing pole, the gabbies they used as bait, and the big fish they had hoped to catch (bit didn’t unfortunately). Looks like we may have to take him fishing!
We saw a fair bit of wildlife. There were cockatoos that swarmed us each morning looking for food, a monitor lizard that cruised around the bbq, cute crabs that poked out of holes in the sand and lots of fish swimming in the ocean.
The kids slept well in the tent – a pleasant surprise as we were worried how they’d adjust. The only catch was that Tomas stayed up until 9pm or so and was up at his usual 6am so he was pretty tired part way through the day on Saturday so we went for a drive to the town of Bundeena so the kids could nap. The town is very quaint and there’s a great playground there which the kids enjoyed.
We lucked out with fabulous weather – sunny and blue skies all weekend until we packed up Sunday morning when it started to sprinkle a bit. Couldn’t have asked for better weather as it’s been the rainiest summer in years!
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