A nice long weekend to get in a bit of star-gazing…

This long weekend is the perfect time to go camping under the stars. If you’ve left things too late, you can always set up a makeshift camp in the backyard and enjoy the great outdoors in a somewhat more humble way. Except if you’re in Western Australia, of course, where you’re probably better off battening down the hatches and saving your star-gazing for another night…

For future star-gazing endeavours, check out Lonely Planet’s Under The Stars Camping – a book packed with suggestions of where best to camp or caravan in Australia and New Zealand so as to get the perfect vantage points of our majestically dotted skies.

In the meantime, enjoy an excerpt from the book, below.

Lisa Andrews

Under The Stars Camping

The rain thunders down on the roof of the car as the windscreen wipers work overtime to grant us but a glimmer of the road ahead with every laboured swipe. Hardly the ideal conditions for camping, we agree, but after two years largely confined to our home in northern New South Wales you-know-when, my outdoors-obsessed husband and I seize the opportunity to cross the border for a camping holiday in Queensland as soon as the opportunity arises.

An ambitious plan to hike a trail and then spend our first night at Girraween National Park saw us hit the road extra early for a three-hour drive west. To our relief, the relentless rain dissipates as we reach the New South Wales Northern Tablelands, and the warm glow of the afternoon sun turns the rural landscape’s patchwork of paddocks to gold.

We celebrate the (then-novel) event of crossing the border by dropping into a winery on the way into the national park, which fringes the boutique Granite Belt wine region. Within minutes we’re in the wilderness, surrounded by twisted gums and granite boulders, and soothed by the earthy, ever-so-citrussy scent of the Aussie bush. There’s a flash of red and blue as a crimson rosella torpedoes through the trees, and our ears prick at the distinctive thump-thump of a startled kangaroo bounding off into the scrub. It’s also impossible to ignore the spirituality of this ancient land, used by countless generations of First Nations peoples.

‘We should put the tent up before we hike,’ says my husband sensibly.

An eagle-eyed kookaburra watches us fumble with our new tent like camping rookies (we’re not), hopeful of scoring a snack (it doesn’t).

We probably should have made a more sensible decision about the hike, too, I rue, as a dodgy cloud dumps its guts just as we hit our stride.

Cockatoos screech and wallabies scatter as we make a beeline for the covered veranda of the shuttered information centre. After half an hour, the downpour still hasn’t ceased. We decide to make a dash for our campsite, where we’re gutted to discover that in our haste to put up the tent, we hadn’t secured the fly properly, and the rain has soaked part of the mattress. Cursing our carelessness, as well as the rain for good measure, we suddenly remember the wine.

Mellowed by a glass or two of robust red, we somehow manage to get a barbecue going under an awning, sipping wine as the nostalgic aroma of sizzling sausages and onions fills our nostrils. We’re both saturated by the time we chow down on our sausage sandwiches, topped with charred onions and tomato sauce. Yet in this moment I feel more at peace than I have in a long time. That’s camping for you. Even when it’s a bit of a disaster, it’s still a tonic for the soul.

Sarah Reid

‘Lonely Planet’s Under The Stars Camping Australia and New Zealand’ is available in quality bookstores, RRP $44.99.