3 Day Camping Trip in Port Stephens + Vlog

Kevin and I wanted to start our own Christmas “family” tradition so we went camping for the first time in December 2019 (yes - 6 months ago even though I’m only just sharing this post now).

Technically, we’ve gone camping years before separately with our own friendship groups, but this is the first time we’ve camped alone and together. It’s a completely different experience and we loved it!

Trying to book a campsite last minute and over Christmas and New Years is pretty difficult. Most places were completely booked out and/or had a minimum 7 night stay. Luckily, we managed to find a super affordable caravan park called Island Leisure Village with available powered campsites for $60/night with no minimum stay. While it’s not as flashy or conveniently located near the beach as other caravan parks, for the price and last-minute availability — it was perfect for us.

It was our first camping trip together and I was adamant that we should try to find things that we already owned or that we could borrow from family. Who knows — we might hate camping after this (I doubted it) and I didn’t want to waste money on brand new things we might not use ever again.

We packed an old dust-covered tent we found in the family’s storage shed as well as a double air bed from Kmart we bought years ago. We borrowed even older family sleeping bags that were way too small for us, and I even packed an extra throw incase it got too cold at night. We packed a big, borrowed Esky in the boot, a suspiciously sticky gas burner and a brand-new picnic basket with plastic cutlery that my sister regifted to me. We even packed all the supplies for making delicious caramel “macchiatos” (à la Starbucks) like our moka pot and milk frother (yes, a milk frother). We packed a water bottle. We bought a new beach umbrella from Kmart (beach umbrellas are so underrated and was the best decision ever).

We felt so organised and so ready.

…But we forgot pillows. We ended up rolling up our sleeping bag covers into sad, floppy, practically flat pillows and sleeping on that. But it’s okay, at least we could make up for it with delicious coffee in the morning.

We also brought a power board but forgot an extension cord, so we couldn’t actually charge anything at night. Could’ve been worse.

Our planned meals were almost a disaster when we realised that shops were closed on Christmas Day (duh) and that we had to buy extra food for Christmas dinner and find a way to keep it fresh in our cooler overnight. We ended up getting easy Japanese Curry packets and microwaveable rice for the easiest no-fuss dinner.

Disclaimer: we hadn’t moved out yet at this point so our cooking skills were… uh, not very good but I think we did a decent job (also we have nailed the way we cook burgers now). Moral of the story: don’t buy the same cheese and buns that we did.

We spent Christmas day doing the short (but tough) walk to the summit of Tomaree Head and then cooled off afterwards at Zenith Beach. We parked at the top carpark between both entrances so it was an easy and short walk from one to the other! If we were more prepared then we would have packed lunch to have at the beach.

The next day - and our last full day - was spent at Fingal Bay and Bagnall’s Beach in between consuming copious amounts of oysters and wine (we love Holbert’s Oyster Supplies but we also visited Bub's Famous Fish & Chips for the first time - decent but a little expensive, crowded and parking isn’t free).

Bagnall’s Beach is a small but it’s also an off-leash dog beach which means it is excellent for dog watching. 10/10.

I also put together a short vlog which you can watch below!