Paperbark Camp travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises, spa and resorts

For owners Irena and Jeremy Hutchings, the vision to bring sustainable safari-style camping to Australia started in Africa. On their return, they happened upon pristine Jervis Bay and set up camp in a protected bush wetland. The rest, as they say, is history.

With twelve tents floating on timber platforms underneath a canopy of spotted gums and peeling paperbark trees, Paperbark Camp is the perfect foil for those who like roughing it, without actually roughing it. Wafts of eucalyptus and pine tickle your senses at every turn, and eco-tourism is taken very seriously.

Paperbark is near one of the world’s best beaches (Hyams), and you can rent a canoe for paddling along Currambene Creek, or a bicycle for forays into the eucalyptus forest, woodland, or nearby town of Jervis Bay. Locals come from miles around for gourmet treetop dining at the Gunyah Restaurant. Aboriginal for ”meeting place”, the Gunyah doubles as the camp’s nerve center – a place to chill with a book by day and chat by the fire at night.

The eclectic menu might include kangaroo kebabs with lemon and myrtle yogurt, salmon baked in paperbark, and kaffir lime and ginger sorbet with lychees and rum. Pesky possums have been known to poke their noses into unzipped tents and, come morning, you will wale to a dawn chorus that is second to none. Location: Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Photos by: great outdoors direct