Our first camping trip of the summer and we returned to our favourite spot in the Royal National Park, near the one and only town built in the park, Bundeena. The town is located about 20 km into the park; it still astonishes me to see this small town in the middle of no where. But it’s great to have these amenities so close to the campground in case you forget something!
The campground, Bonivale, is located right on the water. It’s a small shallow bay so its great for the kids to swim and splash. The day we arrived, we ran into one of Tomas’ friends from preschool, Gabriel and the two boys set off together with Ethan following. Because the campground is so open, the kids can run around and you can see them from almost everywhere.
Tomas loved getting to know our neighbours, a family of locals who had two boys around his age. The family was very nice and the dad, Glen, taught us how to fish the Aussie way. We caught yabbies (small crayfish-like crustaceans) when the tide went out by using a pump to extract the yabbies from the sand and spit them out on the surface. Then the kids scrambled to catch them without getting pinched! We used yabbies as bait to fish in the ocean. What a feeling to cast a line at the shore! Tomas was in heaven!
Tomas was excited to try bike riding without training wheels as there were several kids in the campground touring around on bikes. Our neighbour kindly lent Tomas his bike and after only a few tries, he was off, albeit a bit wobbly! Guess we could have taken those training wheels off earlier!
Each morning we awoke to a plethera of bird calls – first the yellow crested cocatoos, then the magpies, then the crows – it was almost impossible to sleep in! Ethan somehow managed though! We spent most of our days in the water and stupidly forgot to reapply sunscreen so all of us except Ethan got pretty sun burnt.
At night we played “backyard” cricket on the sand. Our well prepared neighbours actually brought a length of astroturf and the cricket gear!
Our only unwanted guest on this trip was a monitor lizard that perused our campsite while the kids were napping in the tent (see photo of how close it got to our tent!). And the cockatoos were a bit of a bother as they knew when eating time was and hovered looking for food during that time. Once I saw a cockatoo actually climb down a tree trunk using its beak and claws towards our rubbish bag that was hanging there. Who knew they were so agile!
Packed it in just before the rain which was awesome timing! A super holiday for all!
