Location: Newnes. Surrounded by Wollemi Nation Park.

Hanging out with: My cousin Chris, his wife Margie and kids, Ben, Thomas and Matt.

Somewhere in the planning stage of this trip, someone had the bright idea that we should go camping in Newnes with my cousins who live in Sydney. What we forgot to factor in was that July is the middle of winter! Although, the days were sunny, the nights were frosty to say the least. But we kept the campfire burning, rugged up in our thermals, woollies and beanies and my cousins had the forethought to bring their skiing clothes to keep warm.

The town of Newnes was once a thriving coal shale mine and distillery. At its height there was a population of around 1200 workers. But when the Great War came a hundred years ago, the plant shut down, people moved out and the buildings fell into ruin. The Newnes hotel still stands, but it has been turned into a museum. We camped on the banks of the Wolgan river just opposite the old hotel.

This was the first time we stayed in our camper. It was a very useful first run as we soon discovered that there was no gas in the gas bottle when we went to cook our dinner. Luckily we had a dutch oven with grill and jaffle iron so that we could cook on the fire.

There is also a Glow Worm tunnel near by. The tunnel had been cut for the railway, but when the shale plant closed down, the glow worms took over. After a relaxing morning and lunch we finally headed off to the trail head at 3pm, crossed the freezing cold river in our bare feet, only to find a sign that said it was a 4 hour round trip. Given that the sun was going to set in 2 hours we decided to just walk a small portion of the trail, so unfortunately we never made it to the glow worms.

The wildlife in the valley was abundant. There were hundreds of red-necked wallabies, many common wombats and plenty of bird life so our camera also got a good work out.