Free camps v's caravan parks

These days I'd do the reverse :)) When the family travelled with me we always bush camped by finding a spot which couldnt be seen from the road. Never had any worries.

Ditto to footloose's remark....never had any probs

Forgot to mention station stays which we have only recently got onto but have found excellent. Cheaper and not as formal as CVP's - in fact usually pretty casual with full run of shearers mess and opportunity to poke around the shearing shed etc. Sometimes goats, horses, cows etc for the kids to pet and we've generally found station folk to be very interesting characters. Also, as long as they don't think you're a d***head, you'll often get told about attractions on the station or in the local area that you can visit.

:o) Melissa

Good point Alan. The worst that has ever happened to us was on a long weekend camping trip. We arrived around 4 pm and set up and spent a pleasant couple of hours until a group of young people turned up and set up nearby. At first they were okay but as the evening went on and more and more booze was drunk their volume increased at the same rate the general tone of their behaviour decreased. It went on and on for hours and from the loud comments they were making they obviously knew but didn't give a tinkers cuss about how they were effecting others. Eventually at 2am in the morning a fellow that was camping across the way a bit with his missus yelled out asking them to keep it down. The result was that he and his partner were subjected to personal taunts and intimidation such as the perpertrators standing over their little tent and threatening them. This went on until first light at which point the couple came out of their tent, opened the boot of their car and tossed everything in including the tent without packing any of it up and left. We were only half a hour behind them. In town we stopped at the cop shop which was shut so I left a note explaining what had occurred with rego number but whether or not the group were subsequently moved on I'll never know.

Another incident occured one Saturday night when we were sharing a campground with another family. We mistakenly thought these neighbours would be half civil given that they had young kids but once again, when the booze started flowing so did the foul language, loud music etc. When someone who was obviously confident enough to speak up given that they were part of a large group, asked them to tone it down a verbal argument ensued and continued for many hours. There were lots of threats and intimidation exchanged and frankly it was very unnerving. I should say that I have also seen a similar thing happen in a CVP and even though the manager and police got involved they were powerless to move the perpetrator on because he was drunk.

Each of these incidents have occured in campgrounds within easy reach of a town on a Friday or Saturday night when it seems that some of the locals come out for a drinking session. Hence our rule about not camping too close to town on a Fri or Sat night.

Only other tme we ever felt uncomfortable was camped alone at Lake Ballard north of Menzies. We had a pleasant camp until a car came in at 1.30am and stopped just over the rise. We were decidedly uncomfortable with that although it turns out the next day they were just campers like ourselves and they hadn't even realised we were there until daylight. Nevertheless, we did feel a bit vulnerable. The good thing is that we have have countless pleasant camping experiences so we continue to do what we do and just hope for the best.

:o) Melissa