It is a big country. Open up more camping sites

Over 60 years ago, my father and uncles would go alone for the weekend to the campsite to clear the area of dead branches, mow the very long grass, fill any holes with dirt or sand, and put up the tents. They would leave the tents and return a few days later with their families. Is that what you’re calling “ghost camping”? They called this practice “making the site safe for wives and children”, and when the campground became better managed and maintained, the pre-holiday site cleanups became just “stories of how things were”, recited around the campfire.

Snowy Mountains I could not book a site in snow season but campsites were largely empty when I arrived. More ghost booking than ghost camping I guess. (Found a free camp). Free online booking just does not work.

Just so you know I set up my camp and go fishing until dark so please don't take it the wrong way. Also I never fall for the tape around a spot, means nothing to me. A new trick I've seen in the VIC high country is the dropping of a tree over the track. Keeps the riff raff out

Why would people leave gear behind dang

Hello Have a crack, this is a belated request but I’ve just bought my dream car (GXL 76) . The drawer system you have seems perfect. Can you give me a ball park figure on cost? Enjoy the posts, keep em coming……Regards…Steve

How much you want to bet the only ppl they fine are ppl who are living in their tent when they go to work for the day.

Are these tracks doable in a 2wd?

Same thing has happened with my Hema. Fuming. Not happy with it at all, used twice and cant use if it turns off in the bush. Might try for a refund also. 👌 Love ya vids mate..

blanket bay in victoria is notorious for this

Sadly no one seems to care enough anymore to do anything about it, we have an abundance of Salvation jane or (Patterson's curse as you call it) here in South Aus along with dreaded caltrop and gazania's are bloody everywhere....councils seem to not give a rats and i near put myself in hospital trying to make a difference with it in our local Neighbour hood as theres far to much for one person to deal with. keep up the good work fella 👍👍

Beautiful looking place peaceful,

hey mate! im from echuca! hopefuly we can meet up in cohuna! pretty nice place your home town is!

Id just cut tape and set up my tent.

Why would anyone go to the trouble of setting up a tent or camp then going home. That makes zero sense. What makes more sense is they set up, but didnt put anything of value out as sadly people will flog your thongs if they arent on your feet, and they went out on an activity for the day, on the boat, out fishing or sight seeing. But dont want to get back in the dark trying to set up.

I use the google satellite map . What you're suggesting here just looks like a looks good waste of money mate . just use the satellite map feature and zoom in . 10:30 pretty much all the same tracks with satellite maps around black lake lagoon maps.app.goo.gl/qCNYh88MLwFfGWdP7 check it out . It fairdinkum just looks like they have just copied the satellite view and painted it green and blue . This is how I find car and kayak camping spots I use google maps satellite view also ask on forums . watch youtube and using google street view . but the only true test is to go there myself .Happy exploring

Stop waffling and get on with it.

Male emu looks after the chicks.

Great video

Great video mate, thanks for the hema update

I get it people that pay for multiple sites so they aren’t around people, but that’s why I go multi hiking or sites that are 4wd only

Parking a van up and then leaving for a few days sounds like a prime way of getting your stuff vandalised 😂

Have a look at the Aussie Arvos, atoto dash mount radio

So its bad that people are setting up their camps and then going off to explore the local surrounds when i go camping im only there for breakfast and to cook dinner b4 bed

We're in Vic. Had a free camp a few years ago in a spot we'd go to a couple of times a year. This particular trip started out nice and quiet. Neighbour pitched about 20m away. Just a bloke by himself. Plays a bit of opera. All good. Then on the second night, we heard a bit of grunting, howling and yelling from his site. Then the opera got real loud. We took a peek out of our tent. Full moon. Bloke was naked, doing a wee dance around his fire pit. Went on for about 20 minutes. Then all quiet again. Very unsettling.

Checking in from USA. Good, good advice. And, but, that the unarmed thief might be emboldened having heard only a feminine voice. Big dog time.

ABBA's greatest hits😂😂😂😂

Good episode. Have you tried the Billy Goat Nav App, it’s worth a look . National Parks management IMHO levels a lot to be desired .

OZI Explorer is a good app ( on cd ) that was around before Hema's one-off purchase, but it only works in Windows, which is good for trip planning. Good old Patterson curse, also known as a salvation Jane, to be quite honest, it is not that hard to control with the right stuff. Great video. See the next one

Lovely Ep and camp site once again, Yes I am not a fan of NPs at all. In QLD were I live in the Noosa shire. Our local Landcare workers do a better job looking out for pest weeds,

Has anyone stop to think that forestry and parks just show sites book out on there websites that they run wouldn’t be hard to decrease the traffic into places by doing this would it ?

I’ve seen this at concerts with no allocated seating (usually at smaller venues). They’re obviously from the same clan. They access the venue early, often several front seats, then drape their shawl or other garment over the seat. Then chuff off to dinner, arriving back just before the performance. Meanwhile, muggles and I get there early so we can grab our seats, sitting there patiently until the performance.

Yes. It's a ongoing issue.

This happened to me and my mates camping in the beautiful Victorian Highlands. We got to the open camping ground that had about 5 fire pits provided by the Gov. When we arrived, there were 5 camper vans all parked blocking all the fire pits. All vans locked up, and the cheapest of plastic chairs placed around every fire pit. They had effectively blocked off the entire area including access to the river. And nobody around. We set up where there was no fire pit and waited a day. Nobody came. The next day same thing. In the late afternoon we moved our camp to between two of the camper vans and moved their chairs and made use of the fire pit. They turned up the day after that and boy they were not happy. Complaining about us grumbling that we had ‘blocked their access’. I had to say a few words to them which I did. It didn’t go any further, just some grumbling and dark looks. They moved one of the camper vans closer to the other and still were able to camp and use the other fire pits. Absolutely selfish IMO. Just do the right thing and camp from when you are actually there to use the space.

Yeah okay. I lived in my l3004x4 for 18 months and never heard of this. Biggest issue where most ppl camp in my area is there is a 72hr limit, and it fills up and nobody moves. Luckily my setup I could just easily drive anywhere and post up to fix that.

NO QUESTION that ghost camping is an issue in MANY PLACES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here in the province of Ontario - we have a video maker who has lamented his INABILITY to get a camping spot in the very pretty Bon Echo provincial park and it seems very likely that ghost camping IS AN ISSUE in the park as he took a tour through the park and revealed multiple EMPTY CAMPING SPOTS - yet the park registry revrels ALL SPOTS ARE IN USE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In related news - Canadians are permitted to camp for free on "crown land" which is the equivalent of Yankee Bureau of Land Management sites - and such lands have been bought from natives at some time in the past and are now owned by govt - but these lands were never settled on by pioneers so the land is both vacant and often quite pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And people routinely drag old trailers and caravans into the most popular crown land sites and leave them there to block others from using the sites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hehe. Sounds like the German resort disease has made it to Oz. In EU, they like to "reserve" their sunbed by the poolside by placing a towel over "their" sunbed at 10pm the night before. There was a commercial on UK TV showing a nighttime scene with dozens of towels over sunbeds 😀. There would then be an "after-party" gathering to rectify the situation. So then the question becomes, "how do know which of the dozens of towels in the pool is yours?"

Country people go camping in a secluded place away from others and suddenly city dwellers drive past and decide to camp directly beside them pull out the generators and TVs and radios blaring and think that’s camping

Nice vid sir I'm 15 and I own a Land cruiser Prado just like this one but I need to make a hole for the snorkel

At Bribie Island the campsites are often ghost booked by a local group that are trying to stop 4WD's on the beach and also to try and get rid of tourists. Bunch of NIMBY idiots but hopefully the fines may make them think twice.

Arh yes the free campaign its a smoke screen for something more sinister 😮

Easy fix. Just don't go camping during School holidays or long weekends. I always did my camping off season, middle of winter, between holidays, whatever. Spent a week in the Warrumbungles once and had the entire campground to myself.

I’m from Qld and I didn’t know about this until we went to Tasmanian for the xmas period with our van. It’s bad down there. This is the down side of near free camping

Think about the people that have no home but need to work in the area,. so much money you hate everyone that has to battle.

As someone interested in camping at some point, it didn't occur to me I'd need to pre-book a location, makes sense to a point...is it actually illegal to just pitch a tent anywhere in say a national park if you observe the whole leave the area as you found it common courtesy/rule? As to booking a site out completely, surely they could regulate that with a driver's license/ID needed to confirm the booking and then no double ups of addresses listed accepted after the first? That'd reduce/stop booking out a whole camp-site like a selfish mongrel. But like setting up a tent and leaving it there, perfectly understandable if you set up then went for a hike for the day or are enjoying the surrounding area and then camping the night on site, but ghost camp...it just screams Un-Australian. But also being hussies, we don't tend to put up with bullshit fir long either so missing tents/tents dismantled and packed/chucked off to the side why would people risk that? Campervans abandoned for a week...many people know how to siphon petrol or let the air out of wheels then casually pepper them with holes to really ramp up the inconvenience for the people selfishly inconveniencing others, and even if you aren't the sort off person to act on those impulses to inconvenience MIA Campers, there are plenty of people that wouldn't hesitate and then, then there are the people who will wait till the ghost campers rock up and we'll, rocks through a windscreen in the dead of night etc. Nothing too damning, simple, direct, very inconveniencing. I'm not promoting any of this behaviour but it does happen. So it's surprising people would leave their camping stuff unattended for more them just the daytime they went off exploring in. To your first point on someone rocking up early to claim a spot at a park etc, like if there's 1 person there or one couple but there's Moe then one set of seats or barbees, they're 100% only getting one set - should have sent more people o lockdown a large area...there's levels of what's fine and what's not, and it probably scales more intensely if your in a city or outer suburbs rather then in a rural area, but even so. Anyhow, interesting video. Eye opening. Have a grand weekend mate.

Setting stuff up a week or more before they are actually going to be camping there is a big issue in Tassie

Happens in Tassie everywhere, especially in beach locations. It's bullshit. Just selfish assholes.

As far as the old days go i am glad for bookings because i have rang up and the caretaker has said there is plenty of sites available and turn up with nothing available (pebble beach near Batemans bay). This has happened to us on 3 occasions i have booked and someone is camped in our spot. The other issue you brought up you cant get a site there always fully booked but if you do a drive by there is nobody there I hope that np qld police this and then the booking service should work.

If you camp at a busy campsite with lots of people that's not really camping is it 😝

Never even heard of this one! I always assumed that an unattended camp was just someone who set up that morning and ducked off into town without leaving valuables (having had my tent raided for booze before, I certainly wouldn't leave more than required), would never occur to me to set up and then head back to work for the week! To be fair though, I have always considered long-weekend camping in its own category of camping, where expectations of peace, quiet and camping normalcy no longer apply. It really sucks if you can only get away on long weekends but people really need to adjust their expectations and be realistic about popular spots for those few weekends of the year while trying not to get too worked up (stress is bad for the heart, after all!). Is it still ghost camping if you set up bright and early to hold your spot and then come back a couple of hours later?