The Basin campground — Hotel in Sydney

A beautiful camp ground, and would definitely recommend! My partner and I spent the weekend here at the secluded spot, we spent the whole weekend relaxing, swimming and walking! The campsite itself is a little bit of a hassle to get too, however completely worth it. The grounds itself are very spacious with a real mixture of campers (families / young couples / groups of friends). If you are worried about noise etc the site is definitely big enough to find a quiter spot, although having said that we were in the heart of the campground and had found that everyone was extremely respectful and it wasn’t loud / rowdy at all. The rangers at the campsite are on hand and were extremely helpful and friendly. I would definitely come back again, however now realizing how secluded it Is, the only thing we would do differently is struggle a little more on the ferry over and bring more gear with us!

Getting there As per the website there are 2 ways to get to the basin campground:

Option 1 (Ferry): The Basin campground is a short 15-20 minute ferry from Palm Beach wharf. If you are camping here then you cannot park by the wharf as parking is metered and will expire before your return. The Basin website suggests an driving to the wharf, unpacking and then a short drive down the road to a suggested parking spot. This is exactly what we planned to do – the car park is big enough for people to pull up and empty camp gear, there are a lot of people / families who had a lot of baggage with them (us included) but don’t worry this is absolutely fine! We did 3 trips each between the ferry and the wharf with all our gear. The ferry staff although on a schedule will wait and also helped out a few people too. With the parking, we planned to head to the designated spot and catch the bus back as per the recommendation, however one tip is that a there are plenty of unmetered places to park around 300-400m down the road / side streets which I found quite handy and preferred to do rather than waiting for the bus

Option 2 (Driving) I would highly advise against this option if you are camping, unless you are carrying the absolute bear minimum / basics. The walk from the car park (which was only really big enough for around 5 cars) is a steep walk along uneven rocky road. A backpack and a bag would be okay, but anything more would be a real struggle.

Amenities & facilities The campsite although beautiful, is also very basic. There are bbq facilities for guests to use (8) however some weren’t working at the time. When we stayed the camp ground was not too busy so we never really had to wait to use them. We did not bring our own cooking equipment, however in hindsight I would also recommend bringing a little gas cooker / pans to cook yourself should you be visiting during peak timings.

There are 2 big fire pits (they would comfortably seat around 10-15 people), that are available to use in the evenings, however only bookable on the day. So you can imagine with a campground full of people a lot would miss out. We luckily were able to secure one which we were more than happy to share with a family that were camping too.

There is a beautiful lake that you can SUP / Kayak during the day time (a lady comes down and sets up in the mornings over the weekend).

Couple of FYIs - The showers are not heated which was no issue to us, watch out for the Guana’s and Kangaroos!! They must be very used to humans because during our stay there were several times where they were either close to or in people tents looking for food! My advise would be to overpack too, there are no shops close by so the only other option is the ferry back to the wharf. There are vending machines that sell the usual (ice creams / chips / chocolate), but...

This beautiful location is accessible via ferry that leaves from Palm Beach Wharf, the ferry times are on average every hour with a missing timeslot around 1pm. It's about $10 adult to get the ferry across to The Basin. No dogs are allowed. Once there you will see a beautiful grassed area, on the right is camping area and on the left of you walk over is the beautiful Basin swimming area. It's a lovely peaceful little area that has a shark net up on one side of the inlet. You can see lots of wildlife such as wallabies, goanna, kookaburras, fish, birds, etc and it's an amazing picturesque location for tourists to see some very beautiful hidden locations in Australia and experience some fauna in the wild. As well of course enjoy a beautiful picnic or bbq and swim. There are toilets and bbq facilities there but not much else and you need to bring everything with you there. There is another walkway through bush to get there but easiest by ferry. If needed there is also a water taxi to the Basin but it's a lot more expensive. Perfect day out though with friends, family, overseas visitors etc... whilst swimming we saw jellyfish 🪼, sting rays, fish, wallabies and their joeys, kookaburras and a goanna as well as seagulls and other birds. There was only 1 wallaby there on arrival, with a joey in her pouch, which is unusual as usually there are so many. There's a ferry that leaves opposite Barrenjoey House, at the Palm Beach Wharf which takes you to The Basin. We missed the ferry and arrived at 12.30pm and there's not another one till after 2pm so we took the water taxi over and joined some tourists who also missed the ferry. Just as well because the last ferry from The Basin was just after 3pm then another big gap in the next one, so we caught the ferry back. The Wharf is opposite Barrenjoey House...

My partner and I just returned from a beautiful three days at the Basin Campground over New Years Eve. This was their busiest time of year however we still felt we could escape from the people and enjoy some privacy in nature. We were able to choose where we set up our tent as it was all unmarked. We spotted lots of wallabies, goannas and ducks and has a super time swimming in the very safe lagoon. Everyone was fairly compliant with the noise curfew of 10pm although we brought ear plugs which we used every night as the tents were packed in fairly tightly. It is a very family friendly campground is mostly made up of kids rather than backpackers. Ice and bait are sold twice a day and access to barbecues (which are cleaned daily) and water was very easy. The amenities block was large and cleaned daily and the lights in the block stay on during the night which is helpful for nighttime toilet trips! It is a very professionally run campground with strong ranger presence which came in very handy when our air mattress broke and the rangers were only too helpful in providing us with a spare mattress...