What gear we took on our overnight hike with kids

Bonding time whilst hiking with kids

Pure adventure, right? This is as good as it gets when it comes to camping. Especially somewhere like Wilsons Promontory. You could do the 3 day loop taking in Sealers Cove, Refuge Bay and Little Waterloo Bay for your Wilson’s Prom hike. But, with Ned and Olive being 7 and 5 – we were happy with our one night hike.

We have camped at Wilson’s Prom a number of times with the kids. Tidal River has great camping sites near the beach. They also have powered sites and some general camping sites near the tourist office. I’d recommend not camping over this side if you have a choice. It’s not particularly exciting and feels like a car park! Not really the beautiful outlook Wilson’s Prom camping is known for.

Wilsons Promontory National Park or more affectionately known as “The Prom”, offers many stunning walks. It has been, and always will be one of our favourite places.

Wilsons Promontory National Park is one of Victoria’s most popular national parks, and (in our minds) one of the most beautiful national parks in Australia. It offers many great walks for all different fitness levels, including day walks and overnight hikes.

We ventured out from Tidal River, Wilson’s Prom (The Prom) to Oberon Bay. A walk of approximately 7.5km each direction. There is a little bush camping site with drop toilets available.

I do understand that this is not for everyone! It’s an effort! You need to carry everything, set up a tent, eat whatever you have carried then get up and do it all again the next day.

There is no reception. No internet. No running water. No electricity. Just lots and lots of fresh beach air. This is what I love about life. I don’t need a city. Just yourselves and your surroundings for entertainment. Pure bliss.

We started our trip from Melbourne to Wilsons Prom on Saturday morning. We stopped for morning tea in Meeniyan, a cute little town with a good playground and yummy bakery.  After we arrived at Tidal River, we got an overnight parking sticker for the car (from the tourist office), parked the car, had some lunch and then headed off to Oberon Bay.

Wilsons Prom’s landscapes are just gorgeous, you will pass rocky outcrops, beaches, woodlands and some rock scrambles.

What did we have to carry for the 4 of us on our one-night overnight hike? All of the following –

Sleeping Gear

These are our little hiking tents. They weigh about 2 kg each

2 x tents – we choose to take 2 x 2 man tents so Ross and I could carry one each. These are the tents we bought. Can’t really fault them – apart from the sand blown across our face with each wind gust!
4 x sleeping bags – we already had our sleeping bags from all our other camping trips
4 x sleeping mats – We had two already from when Ross and I hiked before the kids. We bought two more from Snowy’s. They blow up easily and are light (but they do roll up quite large)

Food

6 litres of water – there are water tanks at the overnight hiking camp grounds but the rangers do not guarantee this. If there is water it is meant to be boiled/treated before drinking. We had water purifying tablets with us but our 6 litres was enough

Food – we ate lunch before we left. We carried snacks for the afternoon, dinner, breakfast, snacks for the morning and had lunch when we got back to Tidal River on Sunday.

Snacks included lollies, “scroggin”, muesli bars, fruit and more lollies

Ned and Olive ate their fair share of lollies on our overnight hike at Wilsons Prom

Dinner – we kept it super simple and didn’t bother taking anything to cook. If it was going to be cooler weather then a warm meal would have been nice. We had wraps, rolls, salami, cheese, boiled eggs and chocolate.

There are lots of great hiking stove options here.  Just remember its an extra thing that you need to carry.

Breakfast – Muesli bars, boiled eggs, wraps (Pringles for Ned haha!) and fruit.

Bottle of dessert wine – it was on the ‘maybe’ pack list, but we managed to find a spot for it! My parents managed to carry a bottle of white and red wine!

Clothing

Warm layer – we wore shorts and t-shirts and packed a long sleeve jumper, trackie pants and rain jackets (as rain was forecast). We put on the jumpers but not the trackie pants. The rain jackets were not used either

Bathers – we didn’t swim!

Towel – to sit on

Other

Backpacks – Ross and I have a Deuter and Black Wolf backpack each. We have had them for years. They are not hiking backpacks but they do the job. You can find lots of options here from Snowy’s.

All ready to go

First aid kit – just a standard one we keep in the car. Next time we will go through it and work out how much of it we really need.

Fold out/lightweight plates/bowls – check these out here, they are pretty good!

Knife/fork/spoon set – like these ones from Snowy’s. Lightweight and easy to use.

We have a sharp knife with a cover. We bought ours from Spotlight but you can get them from any kitchenware shop

What we were missing was a pillow. We tried to sleep on the spare clothes and the kids had their soft toys. I tried to sleep lying on Olive’s dog and was woken in the morning to her ripping it out from under my head as she wanted to cuddle it! Will have a look as to what type of small blow-up pillows are available

What the kids carried

The kids do have a little travel backpack each but this time they used the smaller backpack attachment from our Deuter and Black Wolf packs. We thought just in case they can’t carry them we would be able to attach them to our bags. The didn’t complain once. I think they are more comfortable than their other bags.

Snacks – lollies, “scroggin” and fruit (which funnily enough I took out from the bag when we got home haha)
Soft toys – because, priorities ha
Jackets
Hats
Toilet Paper

We will probably load them up a little more for the next attempt. They didn’t whinge once about carrying the bags.

Ned playing with some animal poo – great learning!

My hips are pretty sore where the bag was resting and Ross has really sore shoulders. Ross’s bag had the water and was heavier than mine.

Ned managed to pick it up though and walk about 4 steps – it must have been nearly his body weight!

There you have it. Everything we took with us on our first overnight hike with kids at Wilson’s Promontory National Park.

We can’t really fault this trip to be honest. We all loved it and had a ball. We can’t wait for the next overnight hike!

There are other options for Wilson’s Promontory accommodation. You can check availability and prices online at Park Stay. You’ll find glamping tents, wilderness tents and cabins (which book out months in advance). Plus the general sites at Tidal River camping.

There are also other options for an overnight hike at Wilson’s Prom. Including the 3 night loop and some hikes in the northern section of the National Park.

If you are not up for a overnight hike there are lots of day hikes. The best Wilson’s Prom Day Walks start from Tidal River. There is plenty of information at the tourist information office.

As you can see we bought quite a few of our overnight hiking gear from Snowy’s. Every time I jump on and have a look I reckon I could spend loads on lots of different options!

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