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.