School Holidays 1.1 – Gillard’s and Araluen – April 2025

After cancelling a previous camping trip with friends the month before, we booked in some time to catch up with them for a portion of a larger trip they were taking. This was during Ollie’s first school holidays in his Year 1 class (shortened to 1.1 in title for easy reference).

So, knowing full well that it would be bucketing down rain for more than half of our trip, Ollie and I set out down the Monaro Hwy towards Cooma at around 10 on a grey drizzly morning. We got about 20km down the road before Rosie rang me, saying that our friends had been caught packing up in torrential rain that morning and were sick of camping, so they were heading home.

So with my primary reason for going to being to catch up with the crew, I did a u-turn and headed back home. Soon me and Ollie were stretched out on the couch, unsure of what our next step was. Eventually we got another call and the trip was back on, so at 11.30am we set out again.

We made it to Cooma and stopped at Maccas for lunch. Not my first preference, but if you’re travelling with a 6 year old obsessed with all things Minecraft, there’s not really much choice. After lunch we set off again. Traffic was slow because of the weather and caravans, so it was fairly relaxed. We got to the Brown Mountain pass and were completely engulfed in fog, rain and cloud. Fortunately the new brakes in the trailer were working very well and we made it down into the Bega valley without any fuss.

Because we weren’t sure about what we’d be doing the next few days, we stopped for fuel in Bega, then continued on down the main street. It was at this point I realised that I had taken the camp chairs out of the camper and not put them back. Fortunately there was a Supercheap Auto on the way, so we quickly popped in a purchased some new chairs for me and Ollie.

Back on the road we followed Google Maps down Dr George Mountain Road, a fairly well maintained bit of dirt road that lead directly to the Mimosa Rocks National Park. The road would be fun in the dry, but in the wet we had to slow down quite a bit.

Once off that road we almost immediately turned off to head down to Gillard’s Beach. It was on this road, about 1km from our campsite, when a series of corrugations and bumps managed to loosen the rear steps. They opened up and banged onto the dirt road as we were driving along at roughly 40km/h. Both stair legs were snapped off – I managed to find one, but the other was completely gone, probably flung into the surrounding bush. I relatched the stairs again and continued to the camp.

We were in site number 1. We’d booked this months previously, and given it was the Easter break period this had been the last site available. A lot of the site was sloped, but we found some relatively flat spots, parked up and then set up the camper while the rain was temporarily holding off. Once fully set up we grabbed our new chairs, a couple of drinks and then walked down about 300m to our friends site. The sites are organised into clusters of 3 or 4 sites separated by some scrub, and there is a lot of variety in size, shape and incline.

We found our mates and had a catch up, before heading back to the campsite for dinner (pasta for Ollie and chicken wraps for Dad).

The rain kept falling in a constant drizzle, so Ollie stayed in the camper and I sat underneath with a book and some beers. Our next door neighbours in site 2 showed up around 7pm and proceeded to set up a brand new Kmart tent in the wet and dark, so I had some entertainment. This ended when around 3 other 4wds stopped and set up in the same site, with one parking less than a meter from my camper. We were close to the edge of the site as it was the only flat ground, but they probably could have manoeuvred a bit better to leave a bit more of distance between us.

That night the rain bucketed down, getting a good 25mm according to BOM. The poor crew in the new Kmart tent didn’t do well. All of Site 2 were packed and up and left before 8am.

Ollie and I had pancakes for breakfast and basically waited for the rain to stop. He had his Switch and I had a book – with the rain drumming on the roof and a bunch of snacks we were quite comfortable.

Just before lunch we called in on our friends, using umbrellas to stop getting wet. Ollie resisted the urge to jump in every puddle on the way (new Minecraft shoes). We talked a bit and generally hung out at there camp for a while before I left Ollie and headed back to the camper to get some more supplies.

Given the rain, I ended up driving the van back to their site with some lunch, drinks, tools, electronics and a few other odds and ends. Our friends cooked up some amazing loaded nachos which we enjoyed, then we headed back to the camper as the rain picked up again.

Once back we found some more people had moved into Site 2, this time a respectful distance from us. They were soaked having set up a large tent and swag in the rain. They had a couple of little girls with them that definitely wanted to play with Ollie, but he wasn’t keen on going out in the rain.

That afternoon during a break in the weather I took Ollie onto the beach. It wasn’t reachable from the Site 1-4 cluster as the path down to the beach had been completely washed away during 2025 storms, leaving just a small cliff edge for the paths for most sites. We had to walk down 5 or 6 different sites before we found a pathway that was still intact. On the beach the sand erosion had unearthed black sand, and the stormy weather had caused a bunch of bluebottle jellyfish to wash up on the beach. The surf was far too unpredictable to swim in, even if it had been warm and sunny.

Before dusk and with the rain easing I started a fire. Ollie was very impressed that a fire could be started in the rain. I didn’t tell him how many firelighters I used. Dinner that night was sausages, steak and pasta. After dinner we were invited by our neighbours to cook some marshmallows with them on their fire, which we took up. They were nice, Canberra-based as well.

Another early night for both of us. There was only a little bit more rain that night, so that in the morning the camper had a chance to dry out a little before packing away. Ollie spent a bit of time running around in his bright orange pyjamas ‘mining’ minerals with his Minecraft pick. As we packed away the morning got nicer and nicer, with clear blue skies, bright sunshine and no more gusting winds.

After hitching up with drove round to our friends to say farewell and thank them for letting us tag along for a couple of days of their 10 day trip.

We drove out intending to head straight up to Bermagui along the scenic coast road, but found out that a river crossing was flooded preventing access so we ended up having to go back west to Bega and then headed north on the Princes Hwy.

Our destination was Moruya. It was a business day (Thursday), so the Ultimate Camper factory was open and we hoped we would be able to find some spare parts to fix the camper stair legs.

The drive to Moruya was uneventful and we got there about lunch. Once we got to the factory they were all out of the metal tube they use for legs, but they sold us a rubber stopper that matched the one we’d retrieved. I’ll need to source and drill out holes in some steel tubing which is a bit of a pain.

Given it was only lunch time and the day was really nice, we decided to head along Araluen Road instead of going over the Clyde as a bit of a change. We also phoned up Rosie and asked if she would be interested in coming camping with us at Araluen if there were sites available. We had plenty of food and drink left over and the next day was a public holiday.

Araluen Road was as nice as ever. We checked out one of the campsites on the Duea River about halfway down, and it looked nice enough – definitely an option consider later on. We got to Araluen and went straight to the pub, but we missed out on the kitchen being open for lunch. After a quick beer and soft drink we got back in the van and drove a few km’s down the road to what is definitely our most visited campsite. There was plenty of room and we set up in a spot we’ve chosen a couple times before that’s close to the bathrooms and creek. We messaged Rosie that we were staying tonight, and she sent back that she’ll see us around 6pm after she finished work.

Ollie and I had some lunch and had a wander around the campsite. The creek was right up with the most water we’d ever seen, but the next day it had subsided to a more typical level.

Rosie arrived just on dark, and discovered Ollie and I had been busy adorning the camper with multi-coloured fairy lights. We were hard to miss. Rosie offered to cook and we had pasta with beef ragu for dinner that night, ending up with far too much food as usual. We lit a fire and used up the last bag of firewood for our last night on the road.

The next morning after a fairly early bedtime we had a lazy day planned at the campsite. I started pottering about packing some things up, while Rosie took Ollie to the creek to check out the water levels and have a bit of a swim in the icy waters. He ended up creating a bit of a dam and canal system on the shore of the creek – it had dropped massively since that first night we arrived.

I caught up with them and even I ended up dunking myself in the cold water, mostly to get clean after 3 nights without a shower! The day was beautiful again, with usually warm weather and clear skies. We made the executive decision to stay another night at that point. It was too nice a day not to stay.

After our little paddle in the creek, we headed down to the pub for a feed. Food was quite good, though the pub prices seem to keep going up. Seems fairly typical for places nowadays though. Ollie made friends with the cockatoo there, and kept saying ‘Hello’ to him throughout lunch.

After a couple of beers we headed back to the campsite for a quiet afternoon. Ollie made friends with a couple of young girls in the campsite closest to us and we gave all three of the kids scavenger hunt worksheets for them to go through. It worked pretty well. The girls seemed to love playing with Ollie, but I think he got sick of them pretty quickly. They hung around our campsite quite a bit that night and we had a bit of a chat with their mum (Canberra based as well) while the kids built some dams at the creek.

We hadn’t been able to source any firewood for that night at the pub or via a local number plastered around the campsite. We could have got a full trailer load of wood delivered for $120, but we thought that might be overkill.

The camper got fully set back up again after our half-hearted packing up from the morning. Dinner that night was pasta bakes using the ragu and pasta from the night before heated through on the bbq. Rosie and Ollie had an early night after that, but I stayed up with a few beers and a book. We missed having a fire, but the fairy lights were good company.

The next morning was a slow packup. Rosie and Ollie left first and ended up having breakfast in Braidwood, leaving me alone to pack up the camper and haul it back home myself.

This was a great little trip away that turned out to be much different from what we originally expected. As always it was good to catch up with friends, and the impromptu nights spent at Araluen were definitely appreciated.

Boring technical stuff that Rosie doesn’t read

The stairs falling down over corrugations is a bit of a worry. I had already added an additional adjustable toggle latch to the stairs on one side to try and prevent this, but it probably needs further checking to make sure the latching mechanism is properly secure. I might double up on the other side as well. The rubber straps that hold the stairs in place are probably a bit old and stretched out, so I might look at replacing them at the same time.

The poles for the stair feet shouldn’t be too hard to cut to size, but I’ll probably need a proper drill press or at least a vice to drill the holes correctly. We don’t often adjust the steps in any case, so it might be that I can get away with only one set of holes per side. More worrying is the snapped off bits of the old stair feet still embedded in the stares. If they prove difficult to get out, or if they’ve deformed the holes used to attached the feet, this will turn into a much harder job.

Better news is how the battery and fridge performed over the trip. I didn’t charge the camper overnight while the fridge was on, so we left Canberra with about 91% battery. After 2 nights we left the coast with about 50% battery. Travelling to Araluen charged up to around 62% via just the camper solar as I didn’t think we’d be staying longer so I didn’t use the alternator to charge. We ended up going home with about 21% battery left after 4 nights away without needed to top up or set up any solar, and full charging a lot of torches and electronics each night. Battery is 240Ah LiFeP04 (2 x Kings 120Ah).

There’s still a number of small things I need to fix on the camper, but it’s hard finding the time and with winter coming up it’s more likely I’ll leave these for a while longer. They don’t impact our ability to pack up and go somewhere relatively quick and easy, so they’re on the backburner right now.