Over the Christmas/ New Year break we went on a camping trip to the Big 4 Taggerty Holiday Park with the kids. I had researched a heap of things to keep the kids busy and entertained but in the end we did very few of them but still found plenty to do in the area and also plenty of other things that we didn’t get around to doing. Here’s my review of the Big 4 Taggerty Holiday Park. We love camping, its great for the kids and it saves us money that we can spend on other things.

Taggerty is an older park and very family orientated. The owners have recently taken over the park and are still getting their head around things. The facilities for kids are good, such as a playground including jumping pillow, swimming pool, mini golf & tennis courts. I felt really comfortable to let the kids wander around the park together. They would go to and from the park together and I was confident that this was no problem if they stuck together. As expected at their age, they required an adult to accompany them to the pool. The pool was not heated and therefore very cold but the new owners said that getting solar heating for the pool was first on their agenda.

Our site was probably one of the worst in the park (other than the ones near the septic tank), which was a bit disappointing. We had site #17 and that was in the middle of the park with no shade between 10am-6pm at night. This meant that we had to find something to do during the day which most days was fine or move around to different areas trying to find shade if we happened to be there during those times. My friend April joined us for a few days and she had an awesome site #7 which was facing the Acheron River. When we were around during the day we would sit at her site near the river and then move later in the day when it cooled down and our area was then in shade. Any of the sites along the river are great but keep in mind that these sites are all unpowered.

The park was not fully booked so I was a bit annoyed that they had placed us in the middle of the park when there were plenty of other sites available that had shade and were in a better location. Not to worry, I now have a list of questions to ask when booking a site for future reference, lesson learnt, turn a negative into a positive.

Another thing that the new owners should consider is putting in another amenities block (possibly where our site was located), even if it only has toilets and showers. There is only one block of amenities for the whole caravan park which is more of an issue of having to walk so far rather having to wait. We also found that people from the unpowered camping at the bottom of the park were driving up to go to the amenities block which was flicking a lot of dust around the rest of us trying to sit and relax. Again first world problems but something they should consider going forward.

It is a very dusty park and this could be alleviated by putting down some gravel instead of dirt roads. Just a suggestion but we were right in the middle of the park right on the road so we ended up covered in dirt each time someone drove past which was a bit frustrating. We were told on check in that Australian Road Rules apply within the park and the approved speed limit in the park was sign posted at 5kms, many people were not keeping to within this limit and were driving well over, this contributed to the flicking up of dust which was also pretty frustrating.

Those few minor things aside, its a great park, in a great location. Located at the foot of the Cathedral Ranges, there is plenty of walks and swimming at the State Park. We did some bushwalking and rafting over the Little River rapids in the Cathedral Ranges. There are walks rated easy, medium and hard for all levels of walkers, we attempted a medium one but found it too difficult so we went back and stuck to the easy rated river walk.

The caravan park is also located right on the Acheron River, the kids went tubing from one end of the park to the other and there were plenty of other people doing the same thing. The river is not deep so it was safe for the kids to have a paddle down. We did some fishing in the river but on this occasion we didn’t catch anything.

The park has a newish camp kitchen but we didn’t need to use it as we have our own gas hot water system and butane stove. They had a projector screen on the outside of the camp kitchen and at dusk would have kids movies screening which is great for little ones. We love this for our kids as they are getting a bit older now and a movie at that time suits us and then they go straight to bed afterwards. For whatever reason, its still unexplained, the kids were sleeping to well past 9am while we were there. The couple across from us commented on how long they were sleeping! Doesn’t happen at home!

On New Years Eve, we had Shrek on the big screen and then a disco for the kids. The new owners handed round marshmallows and ice poles for all the kids, it was great of them to do that and make the kids feel so welcome.  We stayed for a bit then headed back to our site to huddle round the fire pit and ring in the New Year which all three kids made it to for the first time! Needless to say New Years Day was a bit grumpy for some!

I was disappointed to hear that on New Year Eve a group of teenagers vandalised the toilet block, this is inexcusable behaviour and if my kids ever do anything remotely like what happened there they will sure know about it. These people are new business owners and sure as hell don’t need the added expense of fixing mindless vandalism due to under supervised teenagers when they are already struggling with the costs of a new business. Poor parenting. Rant over.

I know I have had a bit of a rant about the park here, but all in all, I liked it and I would go back again. Next time I’ll know which site to ask for, the park has a lot going for it and I hope that the new owners will make a big difference.

Happy camping!

Sal.

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