It is Monday morning, I feel quite exhausted maybe as I have been none stop all year (2007)that is.
I just came back from a weekend camping trip with Jas, we went all the way down to Eden practically the southern most area of NSW. We went camping at National Parks, in tents, ate what we could (as we did not have our gas burner working and there was a total fire ban), had no showers and just bathed in the beautiful Australian waters. We did not see sharks, or dolphins or whales. We did see Goannas, very friendly eastern-grey kangaroos, wallabies, coastal birds such as the a pair of rare Pied-oyster catcher, gulls and shearwater ( We are not sure if they were wedgetailed shearwater or pied shearwaters).
Jas took a lot of photos and I was looking for extant bird bones on the beach which is always fun for me.
We ate fish and chips in Bermagui (fantastic flathead, and Jas had 12 fresh oysters in Narooma, and we had a fisherman's basket in Eden (the fish was not so good but the fried calamaris were really really something).

We left Sydney on Friday midday and stopped at Kiama Blow hole ( I have not see so many patriotic Australians all in one town), and then Jervis Bay which was had some really nice beaches. Then we kept driving south and decided to camp near the small town of Congo at Eurobodalla National Park. It is really a nice camping spot, with a lacustrine lagoon that goes out to sea, with many sea birds. The campsite was full of people though over the Australia day weekend, and I had a bit of trouble adapting to the long drop toilet.
On Saturday we drove further south and ended up going to Eden where the nice lady at the tourist information told us about camping at the National Park.

We had Jas's new phone GPS with us and Tim the English voice on the GPS telling us where to turn and how long until the destination. I was navigator the whole trip so that was fun.
In the end we camped at Ben Boyd National Park at the camping site called Saltwater Creek. There is also another site called Bittangabee Bay on the south side of Twofold Bay on the Green Cape promotory but there were signs saying that the campsites were booked until the 27th Jan and most people would have booked ahead.

Jas and I liked the Saltwater creek and had fun with the friendly and quite curious eastern grey female that stayed near our tent and was lured by the smell of our roasted chicken sandwiches. We did not feed her and when we packed up and put the rubbish in the bag and in the boot she began to look around elsewhere.
I heard a lot of animal noises outside our tent all night. In the morning I saw more kangaroo prints, and fox prints along with bird prints. We had some breakfast early Sunday morning and packed the inside of the tent up, however we left the rubbish bag out and went down to the beach for a swim. On the way we saw a big goanna near the bbq area and a man feeding it. Jas took some photos and I stood and watched and the goanna felt I was too close and came after me. I moved away and was quite in shock but the goanna did not continue chasing me. So I was a bit fearful of the goannas during this trip.

After our early morning swim in the beach we got back to find the rubbish bag that we had left by the tent opened up with contents sprawled on the ground near the tent. We picked up the pieces and put them back in the bag and started to unpack the tent. I told Jas we should put the rubbish bag back in the boot of the car but he explained to me that no animal would be brave enough to come close to the bag while we were packing. Well that was not the case, while Jas was putting the tent away he was practically attacked by another hungry goanna going for the bag again. I was quite fearful of the goanna and jumped in the car (suddenly there were goannas coming to us from all directions lured by the rottening smell of the chicken from the rubbish). In the end Jas was ingenious and used the tent poles to make a telescopic pole to pick the rubbish up (what was left of it) and get it away from the tent and the car.

Well we finally got the tent down, and put away and cleaned up the rubbish and threw it away in the big bins that were outside the campsite.
It was a bit scary to see the goannas so used to people and so close to us. Makes me become aware how we have to be careful with what rubbish we leave behind and how we dispose of it carefully specially when camping. The thing that was interesting is how close the kangaroo came to us and wanted to eat our food, even though they are herbivorous grazers.
We finally left the campsite and went exploring around the area to Bittangabee Bay and the Lighthouse. After this adventure we drove home and as Tim from the GPS said we ended up arriving in Clovelly (home) at 8.30pm.