Camping has absolutely exploded in popularity lately, owing largely to the fact that our international borders have been shut. That means it’s the perfect time to gear up with camping gear and start exploring this incredible country we’re lucky to call our own backyard! Here at Adventure Kings we’ve seen a huge wave of new campers getting out there and amongst it – either first time campers or those who have given camping another spin after maybe not doing it since they were a kid.

I personally reckon that is awesome! There are few things you could do better with a spare weekend than to hit a local campsite and get out on an adventure. But with the amazing experiences that camping brings, come some very real responsibilities that we all need to be aware of. What I want to do is talk about a topic that’s very close to me, and that’s campsite etiquette. Yep, big word, especially for someone like me who can’t even spell etiquette, but it’s something that we all need to talk about.

As camping gets more popular and more people join in on the fun with their own camping gear, this topic becomes increasingly more important. So grab a coldie and kick back for a minute as we have a yarn about a few topics that aren’t talked about enough, but should be.

TAKE IT IN – TAKE IT OUT

Let’s start with the simplest one first. When it comes to rubbish, if you can take it into camp with you, then you can take it out until you find a bin, period. There’s just no other way to look at it, and there is no grey area here. Yes, I know rubbish gets smelly and gross, and no-one wants to fill their car up with leaking bin bags. There’s other solutions here. We sell a couple of different Dirty Gear Bags and I think they should be as essential a part of your camping gear as your swag is. Use heavy-duty bin bags inside them to keep the dirty gear bag clean and make it easy to empty when you do get to a bin.

Oh, and dead set, I can’t believe I need to say this but no campfire in the history of the universe has ever gotten hot enough to melt an empty beer can. Don’t throw cans or bottles or any broken bits of camping gear in the fire and just assume that they’ll stop existing! That goes for baked bean tins, beer bottle lids, anything. They don’t just burn into non-existence so don’t chuck them in the fire. No-one likes rocking up to a campsite and seeing rubbish strewn around everywhere, and if you’re the kind of person that does this, then you’re a grub and you don’t deserve to go camping.

NEVER LEAVE A CAMPFIRE STILL SMOULDERING

After leaving rubbish behind, one of the worst mistakes new campers make with their camping gear is not fully extinguishing a campfire when they leave camp. Everyone should be clearly, painfully aware of what happened on Fraser Island in October 2020. A couple of campers lit a campfire, neglected to extinguish it and it burnt out more than 87,000 hectares of the island’s bushland. Forget the fact that they shouldn’t have lit the fire in the first place – but this is a worst-case scenario of what happens when you don’t put a campfire out properly. All it takes is a bit of a wind gust to pick some embers up and carry them into a dry patch of grass for a bushfire to start. It’s just not worth it. Always properly extinguish campfires, ideally with water if you’re near a river or the beach, or by properly turning it over with a shovel and burying it well under the dirt. A word of warning about that last technique though – don’t ever bury a fire on a beach. The heat transfers through the sand and can stay hot enough to burn skin for hours. Only a couple of years back this led to a poor kid’s feet being being third-degree burnt up on a QLD beach when he unknowingly ran over a buried fire. Carry the right camping gear to properly extinguish your campfire every time!

DON’T BE THAT NOISY NEIGHBOUR

Okay, so let’s now turn the discussion to that of noise, and the impact it can have on the rest of a campsite. We’ve all been there – enjoying ourselves, the drinks flowing, the camping gear all setup, the music turned up – just having a good old time! But that’s not everyone’s idea of fun, and even if it is, it’s not every time either. Flat out – if you’re going camping with a group of mates and the fridges are full, find an empty campsite well away from everyone. Go well out into the scrub where you’re nowhere near close to within earshot of others and party on. But if you’re at even a moderately busy campsite, particularly one with kids – then 10pm is quiet time. It means turning the music down, and being aware that there are others within earshot whose idea of a good time isn’t a bit of Working Class Man at 2am in the morning. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the porkchops who rock up after dark and setup their camping gear on the edge of your swag instead of anywhere else in the otherwise empty campsite have a right to whinge, but what I’m saying is this. Campsite etiquette is all about being a good neighbour.

THE RIGHT WAY TO DO YOUR PAPERWORK

Righto, this next topic might be a bit on the nose for some, but geez it’s a bloody important one. Let’s talk about the RIGHT way to go to the dunny when you’re out on the bush. You need three bits of camping gear –a roll of dunny paper, a long handled shovel and a lighter (or matches). Most people have already figured out the first one, a fair few understand the importance of the second one, but no-one seems to understand the need for the third one!

You absolutely need to dig a hole to go to the dunny in the bush, and cover your tracks by filling the hole in when you’re done. However, if i you dig a hole and then simply bury your dunny paper, there is every chance that some sort of animal will come across the disturbed dirt and dig it up. Then you end up with toilet paper strewn across the bush, almost as bad as if you’d never dug a hole to start with.

Here is the correct solution – burn your dunny paper off when you’re done. Of course this means the need to watch it like an absolute hawk, especially if it’s breezy, because you don’t want to be the camper who burnt a state forest down going to the dunny. But you need to make sure all the toilet paper is properly burnt off as well, before you make doubly triply sure that you stamp out all the embers and ashes with your boots or your shovel. It’s all about leaving no trace.

Of course if that sounds like a lot of work – especially if you’ve got kids – then the easy, hygienic solution is one of these camping cassette toilets as part of your camping gear kit. You add toilet chemicals to them to assist in breaking everything down and helping with odour control, and you just empty it into an RV dump point when you come across one. Plus you get the benefit of an actual dunny seat instead of an old fallen tree!

A BIT OF BREATHING ROOM

Okay, so I get the fact that for a lot of beginner campers, taking your camping gear  and heading out camping by yourself out in the scrub can be a bit daunting. So I can somewhat understand why this next phenomena happens, but that doesn’t make it okay! There’s no need to camp on top of someone if there’s room to spread out. By all means set up on the other side of camp and go introduce yourself and say g’day if that’ll make you feel more relaxed, but seriously – no-one wants to hear neighbours snoring through their swag all night when there’s an entire empty campsite with heaps of space to spread out your camping gear! Camping is about relaxing and getting back to nature, not feeling as claustrophobic as you do back home in peak hour traffic.

LEAVE EVERY CAMPSITE BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT

My final point is a bit of a request. It’s something I do and that I’d love for you to do as well. Make a point of leaving every campsite in better condition than the way you found it. It’s a selfless act that won’t take much time, but will improve the camping experience for other people. Hopefully that becomes a flow-on effect, with the end result being more enjoyable camping experiences for everyone.