August 23-24 Cape Hillsborough - Carn the roos.

National Park camping is something that can be hit and miss, all in the same stay. Broken Head on the way up was awful, then we really liked it, then we were all closed in by other vans and hated it, then it opened up and we were pretty happy with the stay in the end. The beach there was amazing and only a few steps from our camp chairs. Cape Hillsborough was a similar experience where the site seemed a bit dodgy being on the end, close to a thoroughfare, and quite noisy from the pool. We did have sea glimpses which were as described, and sitting on a warm day under the trees and no awning during the afternoon was quite pleasant. The facilities are ordinary, and the park needs a lot of updating, but the beach is 100 meters away and it is a very good looking beach.

The national park is off the highway by about 25ks, and if you take a wrong turn, 23k of it is dirt road and thankfully we stopped before committing to that. The drawcard here are the kangaroos on the beach. The kangaroos come out at sunrise to feed on washed up mangrove seeds, but now, “to protect the animals” there is some feeding of the 8 kangaroos (wallabies to be correct) that come down. The person to roo ratio is around 15 to 1, with 100 – 150 people coming down in the morning before sparrows. Doing this at sunrise does give a great photo opportunity, but really, unless you are visiting from overseas, you have seen roos and this is just with a different backdrop. Admittedly, it is a spectacular backdrop. It was nice to see the roos standing up instead of what we have been seeing on the side of the road.

Cape Hillsborough itself is spectacular. Sand, trees, blue water, islands, a couple of boats – just looks like paradise. One island is accessible at low tide, and we marvelled at how quickly the pathway opened up on the tide change. We took a good vigorous walk along the mountain to the lookouts, one where you could see turtles swimming in the sea in the pristine, clear water. Apparently crocs can still be an issue – a 1.2m was seen just days ago at this beach – so still not able to get into the water even though the weather suggests it would be a good idea.

The other highlight was some van talk for a change. We have seen many vans and take a passing interest, but for the first time we saw another spacepod, the same as our last van. We were caught by the owners looking at it, and of course they are used to talking about it to strangers – but this time we knew all about it and were asking specifically about the adaptations. Cool to see one in the wild.

Cape Hillsborough Tourist Park google review.

The location is awesome. Awesome beach, awesome walking trails and awesome wildlife. It’s just a shame that the park can’t keep up the awesomeness as the sites had dodgy concrete platforms and amenities that were not only dated, but just not that nice to be in. Sea glimpses as advertised were glimpses, so they are on the money there. As for the early morning kangaroo feeding on the beach, it is quite reminiscent of Monkey Mia and how they have had to make this a very transactional experience. Yes, we got a nice shot for facebook but this will probably appeal to overseas visitors rather than locals who have seen a roo or two. Camp site 3 stars – location 5 stars.