Although there are parts of Australia currently in high risk of fire danger, when the risk drops to a safe level cooking your meals over a campfire can be one of the most rewarding things you can do in life.

With minimal equipment required, campfire cooking is simple and effective, however there are a few things you can do to improve one of the easiest ways to enjoy your campfire cooking experience with your family and friends.

Be warned, fire is dangerous, and in the Australian bush, fire bans, fire warnings and common sense should all be observed at all times, as the consequences can result in death, damage to property and severe injury.

With the warnings clear and understood it’s time to get your campfire started!

Firstly to get your fire cranking, you are going to need some dry firewood. It’s good to collect firewood where permitted well in advance of when you need to burn it and to keep it as dry as possible. There are plenty of additional restrictions if you are heading into a national park, and if you are camping on private property you should double check if you have permission to collect and burn firewood.

If you do not have permission to collect wood from the land you are staying on you can always purchase bags of pre-seasoned dry firewood for an affordable price from many servo’s.

Before lighting your fire you want to organise your pile of dry firewood into different thickness of peices logs and also gather some smaller tinder, again making sure it is dry.

Find a location that has a dirt base, and line the area with stones to prevent the spread of fire, unless there is a fire pit already established, in which case, you should keep the damage to the campsite minimal, and try your best to reuse the fireplace that’s been established.

NB: don’t use river stones they can explode when the water inside boils!

The idea is to stack the fire so when it is lit, it will slowly take care of itself leaving you to pay attention to other things around camp.

Start with a pile of smaller tinder with some thicker sticks and finally larger logs arranged to surround the tinder pile in the middle without choking the flames or smothering your tinder pile!

When lighting your fire, don’t use accelerants if you plan on eating food from the fire, accelerants are any flammable liquids or and can leave nasty chemical flavours in your food potentially making you sick.

We recommend using some tissue or toilet paper and a cigarette lighter, but if you want to go fully “Bear Grylls” you could grab one of those flint scrapers to get the job done too!

Once your tinder has taken on the ember and there is a flame that is lit, you can watch it slowly take if it is only smoldering, the temptation is to blow into the tinder like you are blowing out the candles on a cake, however if you handle the tinder and fan the entire bundle you won’t lose your breath and you wont singe your eyebrows, and lastly wont choke yourself on thick smoke. To build your flames add more sticks as necessary and build the size of your fire!

When your fire is established. It is time to cook!

There are 3 main ways to cook over a campfire when looking at the Adventure Kings range of cooking gear – the first is to take out your Adventure Kings BBQ Plate and set it up towards the side of your campfire.

Take a small folding shovel and steal some red-hot coals from the base of your fire. Careful not to steal too many as they are what is keeping the rest of the fire burning.

Place your hot coals in a bed underneath your Kings BBQ Plate, this will allow your plate to preheat just like your BBQ at home.

Once the hotplate is hot enough it’s time to add a little bit of cooking oil and spread it evenly using Your Adventure Kings BBQ Tools scraper, to make sure there is an even coating.

Pull out your favorite BBQ meals, from your Adventure Kings Fridge/Freezer. We prefer the good old mix of snags and fried onions on white bread, or a classic satay chicken skewer or two but on occasion you have to get a little bit fancy pants and we’ve even made traditional middle eastern style Kebabs for a late night snack by using 2 steel hotplates as a sandwich press and filling the wrap with fresh ingredients that is certainly a treat for the tracks!

When you have cooked your meal and enjoyed eating your hand cooked meal with your family and friends, clean up and pack up is simple.

All you have to do is remove the hot coals from underneath the Steel BBQ Plate (replace them into the fire) and wait till the hotplate is cool enough to handle.

Once your hotplate is cool enough, you can fold in one of the legs and scrape the scraps onto your fire with your Kings BBQ tools and simply fold the other leg and tuck it neatly into the included canvas carry bag ready to go next time you need to cook up a storm!

The next cooking method is multi tiered – LITERALLY, the Adventure Kings Swing BBQ which offers 3 levels of cooking ability, much the same as the Kings BBQ Plate you also have the choice of cooking using a traditional Bedourie Traditional Camp Oven this is a modern (1920’s) high tech version of a traditional cast iron oven, however much lighter and a lot stronger!

There is no limit to what you can cook on an open campfire, and you will find that no matter what you cook you will be rewarded with a hearty meal that is full of flavours that you will never forget!