Bendethera Valley - With a Camper Trailer

After surviving our first night at Yadboro Flat, we enjoyed a leisurely day around the camp.  Being a long weekend, the campsite soon filled up with families all keen to enjoy the great outdoors.  The wind thankfully dropped off, and we were left with glorious weather, which was to stay with us for the rest of the week.

Sometime in the afternoon Nic and Dave arrived with their hired Kimberley Kamper.  We enjoyed the evening catching up and comparing camper trailers.  I was surprised at how similar the campers were overall, with their strong chassis and suspension providing the backbone for an excellent camper.

The Kimberley has a great awning.

The Kimberley, like our Aussie Swag has a pantry and fridge in the front of the trailer, and it really is a matter of horses for courses as to your preference.  The advances of time meant that their camper had hot and cold running water powered by a neat diesel heater - which is available on new Aussie Swags too, but sadly in 2005 when ours was built, was not an option... but I had a cunning plan to fix that.

I firmly think that if you’re interested in buying a camper the best thing you can do is try before you buy…  Hiring a camper will give you an insight into how you use your camper and what features you will deem necessary.  Once you buy one, you can then work around everything else and adapt to what you have.

We thoroughly enjoyed catching up at Yadboro Flat, however it was quite busy – being a long weekend, and between early morning standoffs between resident cattle and fellow camper’s dogs, chainsaws and kids on motor bikes, we decided to up camp and head further south – to Bendethera Valley.

Towing a camper into Bendethera is possible, following the NPWS recommended route from Moruya.  The worst of the track near Bendethera trigg station has been bypassed, making the track relatively easy for our Terracan and Prado to negotiate.  It is steep, and low range is a must – especially when towing heavy campers, but any four wheel drive could negotiate it in standard form.  After rain the coastal tracks would become very slippery in places – and good tyres and some recovery equipment would be advisable – or patience (beer?) to wait long enough for the tracks to dry out again.  It took us just under two hours driving time from Moruya - and we paused to have lunch and enjoy the view from Hanging Mountain.

The view from Hanging Mountain is spectacular!

The Bendethera valley is absolutely beautiful, and despite the large numbers of people there for the long weekend, we were able to find a delightful private camp on the banks of the Deua River.  We set up camp and dipped out toes into the water… decidedly chilly.  Only Mum was brave enough to dive in on the first day!

The Deua River @ Bendethera

Early morning view of the campsite

What a great camp!  Being here for almost a week meant we could really settle in.  In order to remedy our camper's lack of hot running water, we recently bought a Coleman Hot Water On Demand system.  I had replaced the camper's original generator box with a new box made especially for the Coleman, and setting it up was a simple two minute job.  

Hot running water!

The Coleman's biggest shortfall is the collapsible water container it comes with. Following directions suggested by a friend at Australia4wd, I drilled a 28mm hole in a spare jerry lid (the hardest part was buying the spare lid).  Some self amalgamating tape sealed the pump to the lid, and we were away.  I am pleased to say it worked really well, making washing up water and shower water available in almost limitless quantities… which we needed! The boys loved making mud pies, but even after two or three showers we were still finding mud on their bodies…  All good fun.

The beginning...

And time for a shower... or three!

So what did we do for the week?

Well in a word not much really.  The beauty of a camp like Bendethera is that there is so much to keep big and little entertained.  The kids were happy making mud pies, racing around on their bikes, hassling the resident wallabies and goannas, drawing and colouring and reading books.  The bigger folk were simply happy to catch up on sleep, and relax. We did go for a walk to the Caves, but I will save that story for another day.

The boys enjoyed some fireside chats

One of the camp visitors - cheeky Goanna

And I was flat out babysitting!

At the end of the long weekend, the place emptied and, we had the valley almost to ourselves.  I was surprised to see fewer than half a dozen other tents in the whole valley, particularly with it being the school holidays for both NSW and ACT.

It was bliss.