What to Pack for a Weekend Bush Camp

Spring is the good stuff. The ground has dried out, the nights are not brutal yet, and the mozzies have not fully committed. Perfect window for a couple of nights out before summer turns everything into a sweat box.

Here is what we actually load for a two night bush camp. Not a gear list off a magazine. The stuff that goes in every single time, and the stuff people keep forgetting until they are two hours down a track with no reception.

The four you cannot fudge

Water

More than you think. Four litres per person per day is the number to plan around and that is before you have washed a plate or put out a fire. Carry it in more than one container so a single split jerry does not end the trip.

Recovery gear you know how to use

A snatch strap and rated recovery points are worth nothing if the strap is sun rotted or you are hooking it to a tie down. Have a proper look at your gear before you leave, not when you are buried to the diffs.

A first aid kit that has been opened this year

Check the dates. Check the snake bite bandage is actually still in there. Out here you are a long way from help and a kit you have never opened is a kit you cannot use in a hurry. Ours lives in the door pocket where we can grab it without unpacking the back.

A way to call for help

Phone service disappears faster than you expect. Tell someone where you are going and when you are back. If you are going properly remote, carry something that does not need a tower.

Camp

Swag or tent, whichever you argue less about. Chairs, because sitting on the esky gets old by the second beer. A table if you have got room, it makes cooking about four times less annoying. Headtorch each, plus a spare set of batteries that live in the glovebox and never get borrowed.

Firewood if you are allowed one where you are going, and check that before you leave. Fire bans move around and a ranger does not care that you did not look.

Kitchen

Keep it simple. One pan, one pot, a good knife, a board, a set of tongs. Everything else is optional. Precook one meal at home so night one is heat and eat, because you will arrive later than planned. You always do.

A decent drink bottle or an insulated cup keeps water drinkable through the middle of the day when everything in the car has gone warm.

Clothes

Layers beat bulk. Queensland spring gives you a hot afternoon and a genuinely cold pre dawn on the same trip. A jumper you can throw on at 5am is worth more than a second pair of shorts.

Two shirts minimum for two nights. One gets smoke, one gets dirt, and you want a clean one for the drive home. Ours are 180 GSM cotton, which breathes better than the poly stuff when you are sitting near a fire, and there is not much that fixes a camp shirt once it has copped an ember.

A cap for the middle of the day. A beanie for the morning. Both live in the car permanently and take up no room.

The stuff people forget

• A rubbish bag. Everything you carry in comes back out with you.
• Toilet paper and a trowel. Non negotiable.
• A towel that dries. A wet cotton towel in a sealed car for two days is a smell you will not forget.
• Gaffer tape and cable ties. Between them they will hold most things together long enough to get home.
• Cash. The little servo on the way back will have an eftpos machine that is down.
• Something to put a warm can in so it stays cold longer than four minutes.

What gets left at home

The second stove. The gazebo you have set up once. The speaker, honestly. Whoever is camped a hundred metres away did not come out here for your playlist.

The last check

Tyres, fluids, spare, and a proper look at where you are going before you lose service. Then leave earlier than you planned, because you will not.

If you need a shirt that can cop a fire and a few hundred kilometres of dust, the range is here. We print them to order in our shed in Brisbane.