Camp it up!
Pitch your tent at the best camping sites close to Sydney
The Basin, Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park Distance from Sydney: 30km north/45m drive. Price per night: $34.
Arrive in presidential style by seaplane (the 20-minute flight from Rose Bay is yours for around $360) or slum it on the public ferry from Palm Beach. During school holidays, this Pittwater paradise becomes the United Nations of the camping world, with bronzed Anglo grandmas, Indian kids and cricket-playing blokes happily jostling for space. The sites are unmarked and unpowered, and it’s for tents only.
Booderee National Park, Jervis Bay Distance from Sydney: 190km south/3hrs drive.
Price per night: $13 in off-peak, $20 in the shoulder season and $25 in peak.
Booderee is the Canberra of national parks: generously funded and bureaucratically staffed. There’s even a roundabout at the entrance. But when the sun shines on the beach at Green Patch campsite, it feels more like the Caribbean than our nation’s capital. Booderee, in Jervis Bay Territory, is one of only three mainland national parks run by the federal government (along with Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta). Campsites offer privacy amid scribbly gums and banksias, and facilities are made for comfort.
Bouddi National Park, Killcare Distance from Sydney: 95km northeast/1hr 45m drive. Price per night: $24 at Tallow Beach campground and $34 at Putty Beach campground.
If this campsite were any closer to the beach, you’d be sleeping on a waterbed. Stake out a spot here and you can keep busy for a week: hike the 8km Bouddi coastal walk to MacMasters Beach (views! rainforest! whales!), walk to Killcare for brunch at the Fat Goose, lie on the beach and perve at the surf lifesavers. The northern bit of beach, closest to the campsite, is heaven on a stick if you prefer calm, clear water. Cockatoo Island
Distance from Sydney: 30 minutes by ferry from Circular Quay. Price per night: $45-$360.
Did you know the largest island in Sydney’s harbour is also home to camping and glamping sites? Get over to Cockatoo Island and choose from three options: deluxe waterfront glamping (from $150 a night); a camping package (the premium economy version, from $89); or BYO everything (from $45). Each has killer views of the harbour, by the way.
Uloola Falls Campground, Royal National Park Distance from Sydney: 40km south/1hr drive. Price per night: $12.
The rewards of hiking to this spot deep in the interior of Royal National Park (OK, 6km from Waterfall Station) include an intimate campsite by the creek and likely solitude. Round out the trip with a swim in Karloo Pool (another 2.3km), then finish up at Heathcote Station for a total hiking distance of just over 11km.
Cattai Campground, Cattai National Park Distance from Sydney: 70km northwest/1hr 15m drive. Price per night: $24.
You’re not fully bushing it at Cattai – there are hot showers and flushing toilets – but you’ll be surrounded by glorious greenery and the Hawkesbury River, which means fishing, canoeing and kayaking. Bring your bike for a ride around the park and your binoculars to spot rare native birds.
Ganguddy-Dunns Swamp Campground, Wollemi National Park Distance from Sydney: 260km northwest/4hrs drive. Price per night: $6 adult, $3.50 child.
Wollemi National Park is full of dramatic landscapes: big leafy ferns, deep valleys, historic ruins, rocky pagodas and even a glow worm tunnel in the neighbouring town of Newnes. The campground is perfectly placed to explore it all – there’s no marked spots so just find a quiet corner to plant your pegs and enjoy. Keep your eyes peeled for passing wallabies, purple swamp hens, long-necked turtles and platypi. ■