Levuka

The June long weekend was coming up so it was time to get the van out again and try a bit of winter camping. We teamed up with a couple of other families and headed for a weekend off the grid, camping at Levuka.

Levuka

Levuka's situated approx 80klms on the wrong side of the southern border. For us the attraction of getting away from it all and doing a little 4WDing made this the destination of choice. You can read more about Levuka here.

Day One: We'd tacked some annual leave onto the long weekend which allowed us to arrive at camp Thursday around lunch time. This also meant we beat the weekend rush and got the pick of the camp sites!

We set up our own camp before pitching in to set up a mates tent who wouldn't arrive until later in the evening. It's always good to get a reminder of why we went to the extreme of getting a van! After that dose of reality it was time to switch the genny on so we could warm the van up in preparation for a chilly night - yes, I am soft!!

The rest of the arvo was spent busy with chores such as chopping firewood; clearing the pedestrian and play areas of cow pats (there's plenty of moo moo's roaming the property); prepping for dinner and getting the kids showered before the sun went down.

We burnt plenty of this stuff

A raging fire was lit, the drinks were flowing and we settled in for an evening around the campfire.

Day Two: After a chilly night (we were expecting worse) we got a perfect start to the day with a big fry up. By mid morning it was time go exploring.

My favourite part of camping!!

I did a bit of googling about Levuka prior to the visit. Each clip or write up had one thing in common. It's wet. Whilst the day was a beauty, the tracks were pretty slippery.

We had three cars in the convoy, a Patrol, Rodeo and my Paj. Only the Patrol is geared up for the real rough stuff, so we kept to the less hostile tracks. Even still, there were plenty of challenges that resulted in the mighty Paj needing to snap both the Patrol and Rodeo out of strife throught the day. Needless to say it was great to remind the other blokes about that for the rest of the weekend!

Some beautiful landscape to explore

That's not to say I avoided trouble completely - the Paj went home with a few battle scars to the rear bumper.

Once we were back at camp it was off for showers. There's gas heated hot showers available, however I prefer to use the Companion Pressure shower in the shower tent.

We settled in for a great night of eating and drinking and more eating and more drinking. We were on dinner duties the night before, so it was nice to sit back and wait for the food to roll out.

As we hit the sack it started to rain...

This Paj is a work-horse not a show-pony

Day Three: ...and it kept raining all day Saturday. 

It rarely came down heavily but it rarely stopped. For most of the day it was that light drizzly stuff that just makes things cold and uncomfortable. After a lazy morning we headed down to The Playground to watch some lunatics play in the mud.

A decked out Patrol doing his best

We also managed to pick up a few leeches during the day, so make sure you bring plenty of salt to shake the bastards off. The afternoon's agenda was more R&R, drinks, nibblies and board games. The long weekend crowds also started to flock in today, although it never felt overcrowded at any time.

Sure glad we weren't setting up in this weather

Day Four: Time to pack up. Things were still wet but it stopped raining a few hours before we got out of bed, so at least pack up was not uncomfortable. We will need to unpack when we get home to let things dry out completely. I can also look forward to giving the rig a good bath.

Nothing like a dirty weekend

On the way home we stopped for a burger at the old Ampol in Woodenbong. $9 for one of the best burgers you'll get - do yourself a favour.

$9 and probably 9000Kj, but gee that burger tasted good

Despite the crappy weather on the last day, we had a great time at Levuka and woud be happy to recommend it for your next camping trip. I'm sure we'll be back one day.

Klms: 341
Fuel: 18.5L/100k