Kangaroo Valley camp ground review

We went to Kangaroo Valley's Bendeela campground on the June long weekend. We'd been there a couple of times before and for being so close to Sydney, it is an excellent destination for a weekend.

It has huge grassy campsites, wombats roaming everywhere and the odd kangaroo, close to the river with good canoeing and fishing (although no one I spoke to had caught anything), good family pushbike riding and best of all it is free. Unfortunately no fires allowed, even in a fire bucket.

But when we turned up this time we were confronted with a security guard?

"Just making sure the boys don't get too rowdy," he said.

Not exactly a good recommendation for a family campsite.

Anyway, it seems that there has been some trouble and the Water Authority hire a private security company to man the site in school holidays and long weekends. Worst of all, the best sites next to the river are closed in winter.

"The boys get down there and do donuts and rip the place up so it's closed for regeneration over winter," our security man said.

The main role of the security man is to stop people lighting fires as the ground is in a water catchment area.

As we were canoeing up the river, we saw a group of fishermen light a fire on the bank and sure enough before we had paddled by the security man was on the scene, threatening a $5000 fine.

"Wasn't us," the fishermen said.

So the go is avoid Bendeela on long weekends as the meatheads have well and truly discovered it. And also summer time will reward you with some extra beautiful sites right on the river.

We had an ok weekend. We were far enough away to have the party and music only be a minor annoyance, but the marital melee at about 9.00pm was way too close to our tent.