Borumba Deer Park, August 2015

Borumba Deer Park
113 Yabba Creek Road,
Imbil Qld.
07 5484 5196
email: info@borumbadeerpark.com
August 2015

The sun was shining, the weather was fabulous for August and we were off. It was the first time the P family had ever been to Borumba Deer Park. It is not a difficult drive from Brisbane, about two hours. We saw this sign when we arrived,

Sign reads: 1st gear or reverse, it's your choice

There were not many people there, so we were able to drive around and choose a spot we liked. I appreciate that in a camping ground. However, Borumba Deer Farm has allocated camping spots in the busy times, we think some of the spots are smaller than we would need with our large tent.
We chose a spot down by the creek, called Cascades. It was a great campsite, towards the end of the road. We spent the next too-long setting up, but soon it was done and we were relaxing and enjoying the sounds of the water, it was especially nice to fall asleep to it.

As it started to get dark the first evening, I looked up and saw a deer. We all stood very still and watched this deer, but it didnt seem at all scared. Once it started walking closer to our tent, I asked Red to go out and shoo it away. Of course to the deer, who was sure Red had food in his hand, this was a real bonus. She came closer and closer to the poor kid, who kept walking towards the deer saying shoo, she was very reluctant to be shooed, eventually she wandered away. I said to myself, must make sure I put the bread away in the car. Hmmm.....

Sometime that night, about 3am actually, I heard a noise in the shelter, Mr. P boldly and fearlessly, his only weapon a rather bright torch, went out to see what was going on, "That damn deer is in the kitchen, shoo, go on, get out. " Could it be that I may have forgotten to put the bread rolls away last night? Alas, it was true. I joined my brave hero and found both bags of bread rolls severely munched, the plastic bag was not torn at all, just slobbered on. We locked the remains in the car and went back to bed. Next day, I invented the deer blocker. I knew those little green tarps I kept for an emergency would come in handy.

And, for my inquiring readers, we tossed the munched bread in the bin. No more deer breakins were experienced during our holiday. This lasted until the night of the big wind, which caused it to flap so much, I got up and took them down.

Red has become the camp fire whisperer, he needs some Dad-help occasionally but is learning well. Thanks to his skills we ate the yummiest potatoes cooked in coals and toasted the odd marshmallow. I am not sure why potatoes cooked in coals are oodles better than any I do at home in the oven, but they are.

Borumba Deer Park has sites some powered, in a large flat area called Sherwood Forest. As well as the area down by the creek and Sherwood Forest, there are on-site vans and cabins for people to stay in.

The Stockyard is a large shed with a small stage/raised platform in it, picnic tables and chairs are alongside. Behind it, there is a playground with a long slide on the side of the "hill". Mini golf is to be found here as well. On the left of the Stockyard shed, is the amenities block.

The amenities block, appropriately called Bucks and Does, instead of Ladies and Gentlemen, is kept very clean. There is a disabled shower, two others and a few toilets with basins opposite. It was always kept clean and tidy during our stay. They do ask you to consider others and have short showers, also to please mop out your shower stall when you are done. The water temperature is a big factor to the happiness of my camping experience. The sign on the door of the disabled shower, says it is a requirement by law to keep the temperature down in that one and if you prefer a warmer shower to use another stall. I immediately took their advice and used the ordinary showers. I found the water warm enough if I only used hot, this is in August, I imagine you'd use less hot in the warmer months.

Behind the amenties is the dump point and the laundry block, I nearly forgot to mention a very important part of Borumba and that is the rubbish bins. Yay for rubbish bins, you will find these beside the ammenities block. The laundry area has two washing machines, two dryers and an ironing board. I didn't see an iron, perhaps you borrow it from the office. They do ask for the lids to kept closed to keep frogs and insects out of the machines. What a fabulous suggestion. As previously mentioned, Mrs P, does not do frogs.

Mr. P took Amy and Red to the kiosk where you can buy all the things you forgot to pack, and reindeer food, $2 a small tub. They hurried over to the deer fence eager to feed the deer, but the deer are not eager to be fed, only one was interested it seemed. The deer farm is also home to a rather beautiful rooster and a hen or two, who are more than interested in the deer food. The buck master is a very imposing creature, not for all the tea in China, could you have gotten me in the enclosure with him.

Amy and Red had a great time making dam walls and water paths to float their seed pod boats in. The weather was completely beautiful, those blue skies you dream about. On Wednesday afternoon we got a storm blow through, and while the rain did not last long and we were dry and safe, it brought with it some strong winds. The winds seemed to come flying over us, hit the hill opposite and then bounce back off the hill behind and shake us. Our tent and shelter withstood this rather well, the winds lightened in the morning and it was all over by lunch time. The upside of course was that there was more water in the creek, this made the streams, dams and water paths flow much faster.

You can walk back up the road towards deeper water in the creek, people launch boats, fish and use canoes. This is a hugely popular campground in the summer and I can see why, huge fun for families.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Borumba Deer Farm. The weather was beautiful, the creek was beautiful and the surroundings are beautiful. We are keen to camp there again. I was grateful for the rubbish bins, the showers and the peace and quiet - not necessarily in that order. The owner or manager told us that the river rose 11 metres during the 2011 floods, where we camped would have been well under water.

Borumba Deer Farm camp map:

Fees:
The fees vary and more pricing is on their website, but for camping in an unpowered site it is:
Adults $13 per night
Children 2-15 yrs $7 per night
Older children 16-17 yrs $10 per night

Things to know:

• Hot showers included in price
• Laudromat available
• Dump Point
• Fire rings at campsites
• Ice, gas refills and wood available
• Sites are booked on a site-name basis from what I could work out, unless it's not busy. 
• Friendly manager

For further information, please see their website here

Bigriggen Park, Bigriggan: March, 2015

Bigriggen Park
196 Bigriggan Rd, 
Bigriggan Via Rathdowney
26th March, 2015

Mr. and Mrs. P.

    After a long delay the P's and Grandma were off camping again. We had planned to go camping a whole lot sooner, but with a sore back that took weeks to heal, heavy rains and then a broken collar bone with consequent neck pain that took months to come good, it proved far more difficult to get away than we'd imagined. 

    For this trip we decided to try Bigriggen Park, located in the Scenic Rim, it is not far from Rathdowney, which is not far from Beaudesert. It is a pretty drive from north side Brisbane to the campground, although I think at the limit of how far we want to drive for a camping spot. The difference in the spelling of the town and camping ground is due to a spelling error back in the day, Bigriggen is the correct spelling according to the campground website. 

    When you arrive at Bigriggen you must stop and pay for your booking at the office, you are then given a code that drops a metal rope and you drive on in. The office is also home to the kiosk, here they sell bread, milk, firewood, ice, tinned food etc. When we got there we were happy to see large expanses of green grass and few campers. This will be easy to find a spot we all thought with big smiles on our faces. Until... we drove all over the campground until we found a spot further back by the river,  an area which was flat enough to put our tent. The campground is not suited to large tents. The ground, while mowed and very green, is quite undulating. Not until you are on top of it can you see how much so. Dips in the ground had longer grass growing in them, I think that is why it was harder to see the undulations from a distance. 

 









    The spot we had was lovely as we had no close neighbours. The downside was that it was a good walk to the one amenity block. This block held the showers, toilets and a dump point. The rubbish bins were also here. I do like a camping ground with a dump point and rubbish bins, it makes your time away so much better when you are not having to take rubbish back home with you. There is one very large rain water tank attached to the block, this where you can get drinking water from. The owners advise everyone to boil the water before drinking. It is a very long way to carry a bucket of water though, in the end Mr. P and Red were on water duty and took the car up to get several buckets at a time, this was fine as the grounds were so quiet. 

    

    We never used the showers, well Grandma and Amy decided to have cold showers on a couple of the mornings. Grandma said it was invigorating.... hmmm... that is not what I would have called it. 
The 3 showers have a box outside each door in which you deposit 20c coins for hot water. There are signs telling you how to go about it, 20c buys you 1 minute of hot water, however a couple of the ladies who used the system, said you need to put 4 x 20c coins in before you get any hot water. You also need to pay attention to which box operates which shower, as we also heard about someone who had a really long hot shower and someone else who got a cold one. Clearly he'd been putting his money into the wrong box. You also need to get undressed before you carefully open the door to insert the coins as the hot water comes on immediately. In the ladies block there is a laundry tub and a small bathtub which works for bathing children in. The amenities were always clean and well cared for. There are no laundry facilities available. They do have electricity in the amenities blocks, and lights on all night. 

    The downside for me, Mrs.P, was the frogs. Green tree frogs bring many people great delight, I am just not one of them. We went up late one night and there sitting on the ground in the entrance to the toilets, was the biggest, most enormous frog any of us have ever seen. It was huge. The frog was bigger than my hand, with tiny eyes that didn't look like they'd grown along with the rest of the frog. I'd have liked to take a picture (or rather get someone else to take a picture), but I didn't have my camera with me at the time. We got rain while we were camping and in a coil of rope on top of the trailer's wheel arch was a green frog. How and why amazes me. Bright orange rope does not a tree make. 

    There are fire rings scattered about the grounds and these are emptied when necessary. Despite signs to the contrary people will still try and burn tins and alfoil, it is not nice to see this in your fire pit, because of the weather when we went, we did not bother with a fire this time. 

    Bigriggen has a rather neat BMX track for the kids and even adults to enjoy riding on. It seemed to be quite popular, Amy after getting over her nerves, quite liked it. Bikes are very welcome there and they along with their riders get right of way, the speed for cars is 10kmh within the grounds. 

    Red enjoyed swimming in the Logan River. It is a brown river and has fish in it. You are allowed to fish here. There is a set of rapids that he liked going down, but as you get bumped into the rocks it starts to hurt after awhile. The best way to go down them is on an air bed, it seems. Amy had a couple of swims, but the brown water was out of her comfort zone and I can't say as I blame her. 

    There is a lot of wildlife here.During the day it is noisy minors that plague you. If you even look like making food they are all over, make a sound like an esky opening and you are instantly the most popular activity for miles around. Red lifted his water pistol out of a box on our first day, and the birds flew off. Aha! With water pistol filled and at the ready we knew what to do, it didn't hurt them at all. The birds sat there getting wet until they got sick of it and then flew off, it kept the numbers down though. 
It was probably the time of year we were there, but we had trouble with hairy caterpillars, despite not camping anywhere near the trees we were told to avoid, they had no trouble finding us. Another day it was flies. We have never seen so many flies. The only relief we got was by covering us all in Bushman's Repellent and dabbing it around the edges of the table. Fly coils didn't work at all, thankfully that was only one day.  At night it was the possums and brave, fearless little things they are. The possums come into the area where you are sitting and walk straight passed your legs. They will try and get to the rubbish if they can. You have to try and scare them away they are so bold, gets a bit much truth be told. I could hear them outside the tent during the night, no doubt looking to see if we'd left food out for them. As if. 

   

    I discovered the most amazing tree. It went down in the P family annals as the Deer Tree. I have never seen a tree like it. Unlike most things you think you see, and go closer to look at and find they are not what you thought they were, the deer tree stayed a deer tree no matter how close we got. What do you think?

    We had a lovely time camping at Bigriggen, we left the Wednesday before Easter and woke up to pouring rain. Thankfully Mr. P had put a very large tarp over our entire campsite so we were able to pack up in the rain and it did stop when it was time to take down the tarp. That morning the caravans started arriving, then the tent trailers. We were told by another camper that the campground was expecting 1100 people for the Easter weekend. That accounted for all the rent-a-potties that were at the amenities block. How you would manage with a large tent looking for a flat spot if you didn't get there early I do not know. I am glad we got to spend time at Bigriggen and while we had a lovely time, the P family are not in a hurry to return.

Fees:
There are no powered sites here. 

ADULTS (16 years +) $9.00 per adult per night.
CHILDREN (0 - 15 years) $6.00 per child per night.

There are minimum booking period over the long weekends.

Things to know: 

• Bigriggen have rules but they are not difficult to follow. These rules are easily read on their website. 
• Quiet generators are allowed but only within certain hours
• Firewood is available to buy
• Kiosk
• Rubbish bins provided
• Dump point - environmentally friendly chemicals only
• Booking in is to be done online
• No phone reception to speak of. Occasionally you might get a bit of signal but don't count on it. 
• Cold water showers available but hot water costs extra
• No pets

For further details visit the website here. 

Sandy Creek Camping Grounds, Kilcoy: March 2015

Sandy Creek Camping Grounds
Off Cedarvale Rd.
Kilcoy, QLD.
March, 2015

Mr and Mrs M.

Our first camping trip with just us and both children! We were looking forward to seeing how we and the kids went and while we were anticipating a pretty good trip we were well aware that camping with young children can also be unpredictable and stressful.

Well… it was actually a breeze! An absolutely wonderful, relaxing success. Even the drenching of rain we got as we packed up couldn’t dampen the fabulous time we all had.

Sandy Creek Camping Grounds is definitely our favourite spot yet. For many reasons, but the biggest of which is the beautiful creek we camped alongside. It took us an hour and 20mins from northside Brisbane, going through Woodford. The owners recommend you follow the map on their website when you get closer, not your GPS. Access is via an unsealed road, but is fine for conventional vehicles.

We camped directly beside this beauty, but there were some other lovely areas to choose from too. More on that soon.

     

The owners are very friendly, we saw Brian most days out and about and he’d usually stop for a quick chat. As you enter the grounds you’ll see the owners’ house/reception where you must go upon arrival, and some trailers full of wood (You can buy the wood there and Brian will deliver it to your campsite). As you leave their driveway you can turn right, to a small campground called Fig Tree, or left to the larger campground called… hm, I don’t even know if it was called something…

First, Fig Tree.
This one would be perfect for a large family group or kids camp, or you name it. It’s a smaller camp ground with a large tree (Fig, I’m assuming) providing oodles of shade and a couple of swings hanging underneath. There’s also a big flat grass area closer to the amenities block (flushing toilets and hot showers). The creek in this section is very shallow and sandy, making it perfect for toddlers and young children. It does also deepen in a smaller area and further down is full of rocks perfect for the bigger kids to clamber.

 

     
The water in that wide sandy part was about an inch deep during our visit.

Now, the Left-Turn-To-The-Larger-Campground.
There are two sections to this area. The first is as you drive in, a huge expanse of lovely flat grass, on one side is the creek that you’re able to camp quite close to. There are two shaded picnic tables in this area.

 

This was us. That’s the creek you might be able to see just past those tree trunks. We also happened to have a swing in the tree beside our tent.

As you follow the road up a slope you will find the second section. This has another large area of flat grass, with some trees and another two picnic tables, no creek view at all. This is where the amenities block (flushing toilets and hot showers) is. So yes- if you’re camping down beside the creek you do have a long walk up to the amenities and back. We decided it was worth it.

The amenities block sits behind the trees where the road ends and the (far off) green sign is.

 
We found the amenities blocks to be very well kept, very clean and tidy.

In terms of wildlife, there wasn’t a whole lot to be seen. One morning when I was up early I saw a group of grey kangaroos in the top campground, but they disappeared quickly after seeing me. There were plenty of birds around. A lot of kookaburras (one or two would watch us when we ate, but no brave ones flew down to grab food as we’ve experienced elsewhere), and a small flock of king parrots that would gather on the gravel road (I think there was birdseed scattered there). We heard other birds around as well as frogs. The creek only seemed to have some very small native fish. What we didn’t see were any lace monitors (got to watch them around little children), green ants, jumping ants (oh, so nasty) or many spiders. Missy and Boyo often walked around the campground in bare feet with no problems.

 

The website says that there are rainwater tanks for drinking water. We didn’t end up needing to find those as we collected any water we needed from a fast flowing cascade in the creek beside us.

A note on the creek. Yes it is sandy in places, but not beach-sandy. It’s more of the broken-down-rock kind of sandy so it can be rough if you’re paddling in bare feet for long. We use reefies (lycra surf shoes) for the children anytime we go to creeks and they were perfect this trip in keeping their feet safe while they spent hours exploring and playing. The creek is also full of huge rocks just perfect for rock hopping as far as you like. It’s great exercise (just ask my legs) and lots of fun! We spent many hours beside or in the creek during our stay. There were plenty of little cascades, streams and pools to play in, dangle your feet in, or clamber over using the big rocks. We loved this place, and plan to go back very soon!

 

 

 

Fees:

• $65 for two nights. This includes two adults, and all children under 16yrs.
• $30 for each subsequent night.

Things to know:

• Dog-friendly
• No day trippers or one-night camping
• No powered sites
• Generators allowed between 10am-12pm only
• Wood available to buy
• No gas refills
• No ice sold
• Rainwater tanks available for drinking water
• Helmets must be worn with bikes
• No phone reception

Facilities:

• Flushing toilets
• Hot showers
• Campfires permitted in fire rings
• Walking tracks
• FWDing available, 20km of tracks

For further details see the website here.

Bookings are via phone call to the owners, Brian and Narelle.