Just thought I'd share this weekend's camping experience.
I've been searching for somewhere to camp under dark skies fairly close to Sydney and this weekend I headed up to Cathedral Reserve camping ground. It took me about 2 hours from the eastern subs.
The campground has plenty of room (see Google maps:
http://goo.gl/maps/3P1iP) and about half of it it flat.
It's surrounded by tall trees (taller than I thought by looking at the map) so, at the spot where I set up, I had no view to the east under about 45deg and trees up to about 15deg to the west. I had good views to the north and reasonable to the south except for some random trees near my spot. Also it's at an altitude of 990m asl. There was no drinking water and just a pit toilet.
After the moon set the sky was very dark, though not quite as dark as Lostock (or the darkest place I've been lately which is a friends property down near Wombeyan Caves). The seeing was great and I guess that's partly to do with the altitude.
I'll certainly head up there again, only 2 hours away and easy setup within a couple of metres or where I parked.
Here's a little timelapse I took up there last night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_CQMpxMJKQ
