Things you need for an epic weekend away:

• A car
• Friends
• Good camping supplies
• Food
• Drinks
• Google maps

It’s easily the best time of year for camping up and down the east coast of Australia. The days – long, sun-drenched and warm – are perfect for taking advantage of and exploring the rugged coast. Coastal nights are cool and dry, ideal for hearty meals cooked on and consumed next to a roaring fire.

This is the tale of one such weekend, at a little spot about 4 hours south of Sydney, but it could have been anywhere a couple of hundred kilometres in either direction, and one of any of a fistful of weekends. Once you get south of Gerringong, the hills start getting a little greener, the beaches a little more sparsely populated, the waves a little more empty, and the forest starts encroaching on the sand dunes. Heaven.

We all cruised down late Friday afternoon after taking as early a mark as we could justify, to a semi secret spot on the mid south coast, discovered by one of us a few years ago. An unmarked trail off the highway leads you down to a little known camping spot metres from the beach, with waves pounding on the shore and enough driftwood to make any campfire loving chef weep salt crusted tears. The place is great, but one of many similar spots on the south coast that are easily discoverable with a lazy Sunday afternoon, a laptop, and a slow scroll down an online map with an eye out for an accessible patch of grass by the beach.

Once the sun starts dipping below the horizon, we bust out the tea (and or beer / wine) to start warming our bellies, and start heating up some pre-prepared mass meals to dole out to the starving masses as night falls and the possums start creeping around the perimeter of camp. I cant stress how much having the right gear makes a difference to making meal time easy at night.

Another advantage of camping along the coast – the mornings are actually cool enough to sleep in. But be careful as we head into summer, which means waking up at 5 30 AM feeling as dehydrated as year old beef jerky inside the portable nylon sauna your tent invariably becomes.*

As well as being beautiful, and serene, and temperate, and everything else you could possibly want out of a weekend escape, the south coast of NSW also hosts a plethora of – if not world class at least damn fun – surf breaks with barely a soul in sight. Given the amount of lefts, rights, sheltered points and exposed reefs within an hours drive of each other, given any kind of swell and wind you’re bound to find somewhere to get your dose of stoke. And hey, even if its no North Shore, Oahu, give me a 6 out 10 day with just bunch of friends and the gulls for company over 9 out of 10 and crowds any day.

We awoke early on Sunday to the make the most out of the remaining weekend, and went for a hike around a nearby headland to find a good spot next to the ocean to salute the sun as it popped over the horizon. Once we had worked up an appetite, we returned to the campsite for one of my favourite parts of any camping weekend, the leftover cook up, to satiate our hunger and fuel up for the big drive home.

We gorged ourselves on the remained of a weekends worth of meals, and packed up camp after we had regained the ability to move, sleepy, sore from a few long days of surfs and morning yoga, a little (or a lot, depending on how conscientious / stupid you had been) sunburnt, and completely content – okay maybe a little depressed, we were heading back to start another work week after all.

Images and story by Sydney photographer Dane Tucker. See more on The Salty Shutter.

*Homecamp supply tents designed for the Australian climate so that you don’t turn into beef jerky in a “portable nylon sauna” this summer. Check out the range of Bell tents made from specially treated, super durable canvas.