We’re exploring Australia in a campervan, so we spend our nights at campsites instead of hotels or hostels. It’s our first time travelling like this, and I have to say I was quite surprised how well equipped and clean (most) campsites in Australia are. In this blogpost we discuss our experiences with campsites in Queensland. Features or services we deem important are clean amenities and a WiFi connection (preferably unlimited, free, and fast). Shade on your site is always a plus, especially in hot areas, and a pool is nice as well. We’ve categorized the campsites in Queensland we stayed at according to our degree of satisfaction. The order in each category is random.
As we’d be spending three months on campsites in Australia, we decided to become member of two different campsite networks. Joining the BIG4 Loyalty Club cost us $50 for 2 years, granting a 10% discount (up to $40) on all bookings. For $40 you can buy a Family Parks Membership Card valid for 2 years, granting a 10% discount (up to $20 on sites and $40 on cabins) on all bookings. Both of these memberships are valid on a number of campsites in New Zealand as well, our next stop. A Top Parks Membership Card (used to be Top Tourist Parks) is included in the rental of our Spaceships campervan, good for a 10% discount (up to $40) on all bookings as well. If you were to buy this membership yourself, it would be $40 for 2 years, similar to the others.
Note that prices are in Australian Dollar and can vary depending on the time of the year you visit. We were in Queensland in March 2016.
Our favourite campsites in Queensland
These campsites have everything we desire: unlimited, free, and fast WiFi, clean amenities and a nice kitchen. These are campsites we highly recommend when looking for a campsite in the area.
Mycow Accommodation Mackay
- Price: powered site, 2 nights, $48 ($24 per night)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, and fast
- Amenities: new and clean, but hot
- Friendliness of staff: very friendly owner
- Entertainment: television in kitchen
- Location: Mackay, stopover on our way from Airlie Beach to Brisbane; Woolworths at a 15 minute drive
- Laundry room: washing machines and dryers, both 2 x $2 per load, no ironing board and iron, clothes line with some clothes pins
- Camp kitchen: nice and pretty clean (cooking fires, ovens, microwave, electric kettle, toaster, sinks, small fridge with small freezer compartment, some cooking and eating utensils)
Mycow Accommodation Mackay was one of our stopovers on the way from Airlie Beach to Brisbane: a couple of days of driving and getting some work done. The owner was very friendly and after sorting out the payments, he showed us around on his brand new campsite. We got to choose our site and picked one in the shade, on the shore of Bakers Creek. We could see and hear Bruce Highway from our campervan, but we didn’t lose any sleep over it. WiFi was fast on our site, but not as much in the camp kitchen.
The separate female and male amenities are very new, but rather small. There are three spacious unisex bathrooms as well though, with both toilet and shower. At night some pretty big toads came out, hanging around outside of the amenities. The first one I saw scared the shit out of me! The camp kitchen was quite hot, but nice. Apart from the basic kitchen appliances there was a sofa, a television, a table and some chairs. The laundry room did have airconditioning, even tables, chairs and vending machines. A pleasure to do the laundry at Mycow Accommodation Mackay!
Go to Mycow Accommodation Mackay
BIG4 Gold Coast Holiday Park
- Price: powered site, 6 nights, $307.80 ($51.30 per night, including 10% discount as a BIG4 Loyalty Club member)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, but very slow (possibility to buy extra bandwidth)
- Amenities: clean and very nice
- Friendliness of staff: friendly
- Entertainment: pool, jumping pillow, tennis court, television in dining area of camp kitchen
- Location: close to the Gold Coast Theme Parks, Woolworths at 5 minute drive, Coles at a 10 minute drive
- Laundry room: washing machines (cold: 5 x $1 per load, warm: 6 x $1, hot: 7 x $1), dryers $1 per 8 minutes, ironing board and iron, clothes line
- Camp kitchen: clean and very nice (cooking fires, ovens, barbecues (barbies), microwaves, electric kettles, toasters, sinks, fridges and freezers, basic cooking utensils)
BIG4 Gold Coast Holiday Park is one of the most expensive campsites we stayed at during our three month road trip through Australia. Even though the free WiFi sucked, it’s still one of our favourite campsites in Queensland. The kitchen and amenities were clean and very nice, all new, complete with fish tanks housing Nemo, Dory and other colourful fish. The pool was equally nice, with cabanas all around, a slide, fancy lights at night, and a poolside café with food and drinks at decent prices. Open from 8h ’till 20h, that was the place to be for the best WiFi connection in the park. In the camp kitchen it was decent, on our site there was no WiFi connection. Note that these findings are after we bought the extra bandwidth ($25 for 7 days). We just couldn’t bear the slow free WiFi connection.
To enter the park we had to drive through a boom gate, entering a code. We had to wear a (stupid) wristband at all times as well. Guess that distinguished the campers from the villa guests, and it’s a quick visual check to make sure no outsiders make use of their great facilities. The park organizes a free pancake breakfast every Sunday morning and a free sausages sizzle every Tuesday evening, but we didn’t make it to either of them. At the reception there are tickets for the theme parks and other activities available, with discounts if you’re lucky. We already bought our theme park tickets beforehand online though. You can read up on that in our blogpost “The Best Gold Coast Theme Parks”. Make sure to be outside at dusk, when hundreds of bats fly over the campsite. We had never seen anything like that, so cool!
Go to BIG4 Gold Coast Holiday Park
Average campsites in Queensland
These campsites were nice, but had some flaws. There wasn’t any camp kitchen, the amenities weren’t that clean, or the WiFi was very restricted. We were satisfied with our stay, but they weren’t new or fancy enough to make it to our favourite campsites.
BIG4 Point Vernon Holiday Park
- Price: powered site, 1 night, $32.40 (including 10% discount as a BIG4 Loyalty Club member)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, and decent, if working (could connect in camp kitchen, but not at our campsite)
- Amenities: clean
- Friendliness of staff: very friendly
- Entertainment: television and game room, pool, children’s playground
- Location: Point Vernon, stopover on our way from Airlie Beach to Brisbane
- Laundry room: there was one, but we didn’t check it out
- Camp kitchen: clean (two gas cooking fires, barbecues (barbies), microwave, electric kettle, toaster, sink, fridge with freezer compartment, no cooking and eating utensils)
BIG4 Point Vernon Holiday Park was our last stopover before reaching Brisbane. I had a hard time rating this one. There’s nothing wrong with the facilities, but for some reasons I can’t explain, I didn’t really seem to like this campsite very much. We got a friendly welcome though, the amenities and camp kitchen were clean, and the WiFi was unlimited, free, and, if working, the speed was decent. It was probably me having a bad day or something.
Go to BIG4 Point Vernon Holiday Park
Island Gateway Holiday Park
- Price: powered site, 2 nights, $72 ($36 per night, including 10% discount as a Top Parks member)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, and decent speed
- Amenities: quite clean, newly renovated
- Friendliness of staff: very friendly
- Entertainment: television room, pool, tennis court, bird feeding daily at 16h
- Location: gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, Woolworths at a 4 minute drive, IGA Supermarket at a 5 minute walk
- Laundry room: washing machines 4 x $1 per load (cold water only), dryers 3 x $1 per load, clothes line
- Camp kitchen: quite clean (cooking fires, barbecues (barbies), microwave, electric kettles, toasters, sinks, fridge and freezer, no cooking and eating utensils)
We were definitely satisfied with our stay at Island Gateway Holiday Park, but the amenities and camp kitchen could have been cleaner in our opinion. We got a very friendly welcome and lots of information on the different operators offering day trips to the Whitsunday Islands. We ended up going with Big Fury, but more on that in a separate blogpost. Apart from other campers there were lots of bush stone-curlews hanging around, and a couple of noisy sulphur-crested cockatoos up in the trees. Before we left the campsite we gladly made use of their car wash area with a high pressure hose. It was about time we washed all those dead Outback insects from our bumper!
Go to Island Gateway Holiday Park
Island View Caravan Park
- Price: powered site, 1 night, $34.20 (including 10% discount as a Top Parks member)
- WiFi: paid, $2 for one hour, $10 for 24 hours (didn’t try it)
- Amenities: new and clean (even disco lights when washing your hands)
- Friendliness of staff: friendly
- Entertainment: television room, jumping pillow, pool
- Location: Kinka Beach, stopover on our way from Airlie Beach to Brisbane
- Laundry room: washing machines 4 x $1 per load, dryers 3 x $1 per load, ironing board and iron, clothes line
- Camp kitchen: no camp kitchen, but barbecues and fridge in a covered area
If you don’t need WiFi or a camp kitchen Island View Caravan Park is a nice campsite. It has cool “camp kitchen”, new amenities, and a clean pool. There’s no real camp kitchen, but a covered area with barbecues, a fridge, a bar; and there are picnic tables around the pools (one adult and one family pool). I’m sure there are lots of things to do in the area, according to the Island View website there are, but we didn’t check them out. There’s no Woolworths or Coles close by, but you can do some small grocery shopping at the reception.
Go to Island View Caravan Park
Brisbane Gateway Resort
- Price: powered site, 6 nights, $237.60 ($39.60 per night, including 10% discount because hired campervan)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, and fast
- Amenities: quite clean (need key to enter)
- Friendliness of staff: friendly
- Entertainment: television and game room, pool, children’s playground, tennis court
- Location: a 20 minute drive to the centre of Brisbane, a 10 minute drive to Woolworths, a 5 minute drive to Coles
- Laundry room: washing machines $3 per load ($1 and $2 coins), dryers $1 per 5 minutes, ironing boards and irons, clothes line
- Camp kitchen: small and old, but clean (cooking fire, oven, barbecues (barbies), microwave, electric kettle, toaster, sink, fridge with small freezer compartment)
Even though the kitchen was really small and the amenities could have been cleaner, we had a great stay at Brisbane Gateway Resort. We had the perfect site (number 34), with shade all day round, and WiFi was unlimited, free, and fast. We’re easy to please, right? We got a friendly welcome and the biggest park information brochure ever! It was a “guest and visitor handbook”, filled with all the information you need and more: from a services and facilities directory, to things to see and do in Brisbane, even the city bus timetable. That bus stops near the campsite, but its schedule didn’t fit ours. You can read about all the cool things we did in Brisbane in another blogpost.
Go to Brisbane Gateway Resort
Cairns Holiday Park
- Price: powered site, 1 night, $31.50 (including 10% discount as a Top Parks member)
- WiFi: limited to 3 hours or 500MB per device per day for free
- Amenities: small, not that clean, but there was a second amenities block we didn’t use
- Friendliness of staff: friendly
- Entertainment: pool
- Location: Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef
- Laundry room: there was one, but we didn’t check it out
- Camp kitchen: there was one, but we didn’t check it out
Our camping experience at Cairns Holiday Park was rather hastily and vague. We arrived in Cairns in the afternoon and went straight to the Cairns & Tropical North Visitor Information Centre for some information about liveaboard dive trips to the Great Barrier Reef. They not only helped us with booking such a dive trip, but they arranged a campsite as well: Cairns Holiday Park. We would be leaving at 6h in the morning the next day, so we got takeout, packed our bags and went to sleep. No time to check out the laundry room or the camp kitchen.
We would be going on a 3 day/2 night liveaboard dive trip, so arranged with the owners of the campsite to store our campervan in the park during those nights. The campsite has a fence all around and you need a code in order to get through the boom gate, so our campervan would be safe for $10 per night. In a rush we put some groceries like milk and cheese in the fridge in the camp kitchen. They have a ridiculous tag system though: the colour of the tag changes every Tuesday, and if your groceries have the wrong colour of tag, they will be thrown out. It was Sunday evening and we would be returning Wednesday afternoon, so our groceries would be tagged with the wrong colour. The reception was closed, so we hoped writing a short explanation on our bag would solve this little problem. When we got back from our dive trip we suddenly needed a key to get in the fridge and unfortunately our stuff was nowhere to be found. Too bad!
Go to Cairns Holiday Park
Rowes Bay Beachfront Holiday Park
- Price: powered site, 2 nights, $76 ($38 per night)
- WiFi: limited to 250MB per day, free, and quite slow
- Amenities: clean, need code to enter
- Friendliness of staff: friendly
- Entertainment: pool, tennis court, free board game hire at reception
- Location: Townsville, check out what to do there in another one of our blogposts
- Laundry room: washing machines (cold water only) and dryers, each 2 x $2 per load, ironing board and iron, clothes line
- Camp kitchen: quite clean (cooking fire, barbecues (barbies), microwave, electric kettle, toaster, sink, fridge and freezer)
During our visit to Townsville we stayed at Rowes Bay Beachfront Holiday Park. We got a nice welcome and a great site in the shade. The amenities were spacious and clean, and the camp kitchen was decent. It could have been better equipped though, and there were lots of mosquitos disturbing our dinner, but overall we were satisfied.
Go to Rowes Bay Beachfront Holiday Park
Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park
- Price: powered site, 2 nights, $60 ($30 per night)
- WiFi: unlimited, free, and quite fast
- Amenities: clean
- Friendliness of staff: very friendly
- Entertainment: recreation room with television, sofas and board games, pool, gym
- Location: Mission Beach, close to the beach
- Laundry room: there was one, but we didn’t check it out
- Camp kitchen: quite clean (cooking fires, barbecues (barbies), microwave, electric kettle, toaster, sink, fridge and freezer)
During our stay at Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park we didn’t visit or do anything, because we had to get some work done. The weather wasn’t great anyway, lots of rain, so no biggie. The camp kitchen was quite clean and in the middle of an upgrade we believe. Although the recreation room was a bit dusty, the amenities were clean. Most importantly though, the WiFi was unlimited, free, and quite fast. And an interesting first (and last) for us: a gym on the campsite. Perfect for keeping up with our running schedule when the rain is pouring outside.
Go to Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park
Tropic Breeze Caravan Park
- Price: powered site,1 night, $35 (including $10 discount because of kitchen renovations)
Our stay at Tropic Breeze Caravan Park in Port Douglas was a short one, in the pouring rain. We arrived late and left early, so we really have nothing interesting to say about this campsite. We did get a very friendly welcome from the Dutch lady owning the place. She gave us a lot of information about what to do in the neighbourhood, along the Daintree Coast (the Mossman Gorge is very popular) and on the way back south. Unfortunately the weather didn’t permit a visit to Mossman Gorge, but we did followed her advise about the road along platypus viewing points back south to Mission Beach. You can read up on that in our blogpost about what to do in Queensland.
Go to Tropic Breeze Caravan Park
Campsites in Queensland we wouldn’t return to
Apparently we made some good choices concerning campsites in Queensland, as there wasn’t one we definitely wouldn’t return to. Doing some research before booking paid off! We’ll be covering this in a future blog post as well, but the WikiCamps app is a great starting point for finding campsites in Queensland (and all around Australia).