Blowering Dam Camping; incredible views
There’s some pretty spectacular, and popular camp sites not too far from Canberra, and Blowering Dam is one of them. This has a huge range of spots you can stay, with views that are absolutely magnificent in good weather.
We spent two amazing nights camped on Blowering Dam, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay.
Where is Blowering Dam?
You’ll find this place in between Talbingo and Tumut. You literally drive right past it for quite a while on the Snowy Mountains Highway, and you can drive around the back of it too, if you choose.
About Blowering Dam
This dam is roughly three times the size of the Sydney Harbour, and was built in the 1960’s to hold water released for the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme.
Where can you camp?
There’s a number of places on Wikicamps that show camp sites on Blowering Dam, on both sides of the dam. The Eastern side is by far and away the most popular and easy to access, and there are spots you can get to with no one, or virtually no one around.
Some of these camp sites are national park bookable ones, and others are just free camps that are not signed. Virtually all of the camp sites are the same though; you can either camp near the water, or you can camp up the bank a bit. Some of the upper camping areas have a lot of trees and access to basic amenities, but its all much of a muchness.
Yachting point, Humes and The Pines are all bookable National Park camps, at $6 each, with the rest being free.
What does it cost to camp?
If you’re staying at one of the National Park camp sites, it’s a $6 booking fee per stay, and that’s it. If you stay at one of the unmarked camp sites, its completely free.
Fishing in Blowering Dam
The fishing at Blowering Dam is supposed to be amazing, and we saw a number of big fish jump out of the water. Despite this, we caught nothing, even trying different lures, grasshoppers on floats and soft plastics.
The Murray Cod is caught here, and they grow absolutely massive. Watercraft are allowed in this dam, and fishing from boats is hugely popular.
Fires and dogs
Fires are permitted here, in season, and dogs are too.
Best Blowering Dam Camping
Honestly, we thought most of the Blowering Dam camp sites were pretty similar, except for the access to them, and the number of people at each camp. We pulled in at a handful of the camp sites, and some had 30 + caravans spread out, with others having a huge number of people camping very close to the water.
We ended up staying at a free camp (not because of the cost!), which had a nice little inlet section that was quite pretty, plenty of room and best of all, you couldn’t see a single person for the entire stay.
This was accessed by crossing a small creek, which after a lot of rain would run, and you can see its gotten muddy, but we comfortably got our Reconn R2 and Isuzu Dmax in and out without any issues. You might struggle to get a big caravan through here though, as you need a bit of clearance.
Swimming in Blowering Dam
When you call into a number of the camp sites, it says that for watercraft, including kayaks and canoes, you must wear life jackets. I can only assume this is due to the cold temperature of the water at certain times of the year, and the chance of you getting into trouble if you fell in, but there’s no mention of swimming.
We took the plunge from camp a number of times, and I was shocked at how warm the water was. I was expecting it to be freezing and unpleasant, but in March it was warm and really nice to spend time in.
I’m sure parts of the dam are freezing though, as we stayed at Jones Bridge not long after, and the water flowing down the river from the dam was painfully cold.
Would we recommend staying at Blowering Dam?
The photos do pretty decent justice of Blowering Dam. If you get nice weather, with limited wind, its absolutely stunning, and combined with the fact that its free or low cost, has good fishing and its easy to get to, it’s a huge tick of approval for us.
