5 spectacularly beautiful free camping sites in Australia
Even better than pitching a tent amid some of the world’s most spectacular scenery is not having to pay for it. Here are five campsites where the views, swimming spots, fire-pits and fresh air are free.
The beautiful Boulders are on the doorstep of this free campsite.
1/5
The Boulders, Babimba, Queensland
It’s a basic, unpowered campground on a simple patch of grass with a central toilet block. What makes it incredible is its hop-skip-jump proximity to The Boulders, a swimming spot on the edge of Wooroonooran National Park. Here the crystal-clear waters of Babimba Creek are filtered on a journey through a pristine rainforest dripping with ferns and tangled in sweet-smelling eucalypts.
Centuries of heavy tropical downfalls have washed water over huge granite boulders, smoothing the rocky creekbed and creating picturesque swimming holes where the bottom appears through a watery green lens. Spend your days picnicking on the smooth boulders, swimming in the family-friendly water hole and exploring the lookout and pools downstream and the nearby walking tracks.
2/5
Archer Point, Cooktown, Queensland
It’s a long way to drive for a free campground, but once you’re here you won’t want to leave. Archer Point is 15km south of Cooktown on Queensland’s incredible Cape York Peninsula. It’s on a slither of public land, at the end of an unsealed road, overlooking the shimmering Coral Sea.
Archer Point campground is camping at its most remote. Picture Penny Watson
It benefits enormously from being hemmed in by conservation area and national park in that it retains its natural beauty and rough camping is allowed. There are no toilets or barbeque facilities either, just windswept headlands where caravans park-up and a more sheltered area where tents plant themselves in silty sand shaded by coconut palms. Tent views stretch from croc-inhabited mangroves across a dreamy white sand beach to a swathe of turquoise shallows that appear and disappear with the coming and going of the tide. Strap your windsurfer to the roof, you’ll use it.
3/5
Swimcart Beach, Bay of Fires, Tasmania
Hold your breath. This is camping like it used to be, a throwback to a sepia-tinged ‘70s childhood when dad wore short shorts and mum had big hair. That this campground, one of eight in Tasmania’s you-beaut Bay of Fires area, is still free is one of Australia’s great gifts to mankind. You can pull up here unannounced and stay for a maximum of four weeks if it suits. And it probably will.
Swimcart Beach campground promises waterfront camping. Picture Penny Watson
This is beachfront camping with sands as white as the Whitsunday’s, and sea as turquoise as Ningaloo (just colder). Shaggy sheoaks line the coast alongside the burnt orange lichen-covered granite rocks that gave the bay its name. There are pit toilets (byo toilet paper), natural rocky fire pits for toasting marshmallows and a pleasant little trail leading to a shell-strewn beach. Come off-season to have the place to yourself, or time your run to for whale-watching - Bay of Fires is on the East Coast Whale Trail.
4/5
Kalimna Falls, Gariwerd (Grampians NP), Victoria
There are 12 campgrounds within Gariwerd (Grampians National Park) and the best is likely the least visited given its diminutive size and relative remoteness. Kalymna Falls, in the Pomonal region east of the park, sits creek-side at the base of the spectacular Mt William Range. It is accessed via a slow-going unsealed road that gets washed away after rain so you’ll need a 4WD.
Camping near the top of the world at Gariwerd (Grampians NP). Picture: Tourism Victoria
Just six campsites are completely immersed in a flourishing bird-filled bush garden with a pretty little track connecting each of the sites to the corrugate building that houses a single toilet. Just beyond the canopy of flowering bottle brush the dramatic rocky mountain escarpment looms, beckoning walkers and hikers to the nearby trailheads. Kalymna gets as much service as the park’s paid campsites – the toilet is cleaned daily and rangers make regular appearances.
5/5
Cockle Creek, Southwest NP, Tasmania
At the wild and woolly southern end of Tasmania pristine Cockle Creek promises a special kind of remoteness. The tiny beachfront settlement, with a handful of shacks, is backed by the vast and untouched Tasmania World Heritage Wilderness area. Heading south, there’s not much between your tent and Antarctica bar the mighty Tasman Sea. Technically there are two campgrounds extending along the beach road within 500 metres of each other. At the north end, Recherche Bay Nature Recreation Areas (20 sites) has pit-toilets, fire pits, is dog-friendly but you’ll have to BYO water.
At the southern end, the Southwest National Park campsite (10 sites) has no dogs or fires, but there are pit-toilets, picnic tables and tank water (it’s free but you’ll need to pay a National Parks fee). Both sites share the spoils of grassy sites backed by peppermint-scented native bush, and frontage to dreamy Motts Beach overlooking Recherche Bay. The characteristic wooden bridge between the two campsites crosses picturesque Cockle Creek inlet, perfect for swimming around the pylons and throwing a line in.
Penny Watson is the author of Ultimate Campsites Australia and Slow Travel , both published by Hardie Grant.