In Praise of Caravan Parks
Sundowner Holiday Park
Port Macquarie, Australia
Wow! Australian caravan parks. Luxury hot showers. Clean. Well designed BBQ areas. Pools. Space. Top locations by the beach. . Well maintained. Ever so friendly. And really open to supporting Bike the Earth, with some of them offerings stays for free. Chris' first stay was in a caravan park, cycle/touring and camping whilst on his Duke of Edinburgh expedition in 1981 in Lime Regis, Dorset. It put him off caravan parks for life – until now.
Sundowner have cabins (share toilets), individual chalets, backpacker rooms, and a whole variety of different spaces making it quite unusual: a medium sized swimming pool, a beach nearby, a guest lounge and games room, a kids play area, a conference/wedding centre, and free wifi. And, we have to say, really really friendly staff, not just at the front desk, but also coming to our room to offer us additional alternative locked storage for our bikes.
The Tuncurry Holiday park over the river from Forster had a playful, colourful, trippy pool side area with mushroom and caterpillar fountains. And yet the park was quiet, friendly, and with warm energy. The bathroom was very very clean. And they supported Bike the Earth by letting us camp for free.
We stayed at Hawks Nest caravan park where Roland used to stay 35 years ago. It had changed. You could see how the trees had grown, and there had been renovations, but the basic configuration was still the same. Although the land is owned the Council, the park has new operators who were really open to learning about sustainability in terms of solar panels, water consumption etc.
Other parks we have stayed at:
Uminor caravan park (just north of Sydney)
- more on this later
Bundeena caravan park (just south of Sydney)
- more on this later.
Grassy Heads caravan park
- perhaps the most scenic place to camp I have ever been to (apart from camping on our own in the late 1970s next to hot alkaline pools close to Lake Bogoria in Kenya)
Chris and Roland
No comments:
Post a Comment