This weekend was a bank holiday so we had a much desired long weekend. A few friends and I decided it would be worthwhile going camping. There is a place about 2.5 hours north called Stockton beach which is good for camping and you can do a bit of relaxing. Things were looking great aside from a poor weather forecast. The drive up was a down pour of rain until just before the beach, when it stopped. However things wouldn't stay positive for too long... not even 10 minutes onto the beach and our truck was stuck.
About 30 minutes later (and luckily we had two cars) we were on our way to trying to find a suitable place to make camp. To set the scene a bit more... Stockton Beach is about 35 K long and is more than just your standard beach. Behind the waterfront bit there is a series of small dunes with some sparse bushes, then behind those dunes there are some serious dunes. Thing Sahara like desert on the water front and you'll have an idea of what it's like. We ended up finding a place in the first set of dunes around 10:30 and began setting up camp. By 12:30 we had a camp fire going and were enjoying some beers.
All was going well until about 6AM when it became very windy... then rainy... then the wind and rain increased.... and continued. The wind was strong enough that my tent was blown completely flat, and destroy the tarp covered area with all our food. So this meant we had to try to move the tarp to an area which could withstand the wind and rain.
This misery continued until after lunch when we made the executive decision that with the weather not changing we would pack up and leave. As you can imagine packing in the rain and wind was as pleasant as waking up to it... So we then left to go to a house one of the guys has south of Sydney - a house with a roof, beds, shower, and toilet.
After another 4 hours of driving we were in shelter and able to begin the process all over again. :)
Needless to say the next time we have planned to go camping and the weather report looks disastrous we will rethink our plans.
