After our Kangaroo Valley camping trip at Easter, I’ve been counting down the winter months, waiting for Spring to show its sunny head. What I love most about the October long-weekend (aside from the 3 days off work), is the season shift that comes with the Daylight Saving clock change. It draws a line under those cold nights and the rugged-up fashion, making way for sun-cream and balcony BBQ’s.

To launch us into these happy days, we ventured to the Hawkesbury River for a spot of relaxation in the outdoors and stayed at the Hawkesbury Riverside Tourist Park in Pitt Town, which is about an hour’s drive from Sydney. The tourist park offers a range of accommodation options, including riverbank cottages and cabins, as well as caravan and tent sites.

It’s a lovely campsite, and we’re lucky we got a tent site at such short notice, but it was absolutely packed. Consequently, it did take a while to ‘check-in’ and get our tent site number, but I imagine the process would be a lot smoother on a regular weekend. The park is also equipped with a swimming pool, BBQ and picnic areas (with a microwave, sink and stove-top), clean toilets and hot showers.

After setting up our tent, I had the sudden realisation that we left out camping chairs back home, which killed me a little bit inside as I had them ready-to-go. As it was 4.30pm, it looked like we would have to sit on the ground all evening, but fortunately, there’s a Target Country in Windsor 5km away and we made it in the nick of time. It was a pleasant night of home-made BBQ burgers and toasted marshmallows, only marginally tainted by the noisy neighbours. As the luck of the draw goes, we had a group of around 30 directly next to us, with crying kids, drunk adults, and Bollywood music playing until 2am.

The following day was the first beautifully hot day in weeks though, so we set up on the riverbank with a good book and snacks. There’s a park dog (I assume – I couldn’t work out who owned him), that wandered the grounds all day visiting each family. He laid in the sun with us for a while – slowly creeping up the grassy bank an inch at a time until he was on our blanket. Very cute. 

The small hamlet of Pitt Town is located just five minutes away as well, which worked well as something to do the next morning. We found The Vintage Pantry cafe “where everything is made with love.” I really loved this cafe; when I get around to opening my own cafe one day, I will definitely use some of the rustic charm ideas I saw here.

The beauty of camping is the opportunity to explore new places that you wouldn’t normally think of going to. Hopefully, lots more trips to come this summer!

The Vintage Pantry: Nutella Donut 

The Vintage Pantry: Apple Crumble

The Vintage Pantry: Ice Coffee