Myalup Beach Caravan Park

We live ½ an hour south of Perth and when we go away for a couple of nights at a weekend we usually head south to Bunbury or Busselton and have a few Caravan Parks that we like. We haven’t been brave enough to go bush, yet! Waiting to get a camper trailer and somebody to go with.

One weekend we decided to try a park that we had seen signs from the road for but never looked at (1st mistake), we checked it out on the internet and it looked a good place to try, close to the beach (which has 4WD access), shop play area, BBQs, clean showers and toilets http://www.myalupbeachcaravanpark.com.au/

So we arrive on the Friday evening, after a long week of work, we just want to get the tent up and have a couple of nice cold stubbies. The office is shut with a note to go to the managers van. The manager wanders down back on to the road tells us to turn around and pitch the tent behind the bus shelter on a well worn bit of grass and sand.At this point we should have jumped back in the car and headed to one of our well-loved sites! But by know we thought this will be an experience and I am sure it is not going to be as bad as it looked! (2nd Mistake).

This site has lots of residential vans, in various states of repair! And only a few, as far as we could see, sites for tents and vans and these were all by the road side – the others were already full, by what we later found out was a big group.Also being so close to a beach with 4WD was a big draw to people who like to fish, and some of those liked to take quad bikes on to the beach – more about this later.

The showers and toilets needed knocking down and re-building! I’m sure if the cobwebs were cleaned up they would have probably fallen down on there own, I’m sure they were an integral part of the structure!The sinks were chipped, in the gents they had various different types of hair in and around them (I’m not going to say anymore). The showers were even more disturbing. So I will leave it to your imagination what the toilets were like!

We had brought food for the first night, which was lucky as the BBQ’s described on the website were wood BBQ’s and there was a total fire ban (it was January). Washing up in the camp kitchen was hindered by the total lack of hot water and a filthy sink.

That night the fun really started, I like parks that have a quiet after 10pm rule, there is a reason for this I need my beauty sleep! There was a group at one of the resi vans (young guys and girls) that were drinking and revving quad bikes until the early hours. Then there was the groups in the tents near us – Ok there was the usual muffled voices with occasional bursts of laughter (which I don’t mind), but the really annoying thing was the kids that they had put in the tent behind ours who were obviously playing on a Nintendo WII (I thought the idea of camping was to get away from TV, computer games etc) then occasionally an adult would come a long (about every ½ hour) and scream and shout at them to turn it down! Which they promptly did for about 5 minutes! This all went on ‘til about 2.30 in the morning, then they were all awake cooking breakfast by 7 – how do they do it? ‘cause I cant! But then they probably got woken up the same way we did…

The joy about being right next to a road to a beach, opposite a shop, is the delivery truck at 4am, followed by the steady stream of fishermen heading down to the beach, stopping at the shop to buy bait, ciggies, newspaper etc!

Ok in the cold light of day after a couple of cups of coffee and breaky - a wash in cold water (I wasn’t brave enough to shower!) things didn’t seem as bad. We had a full day planned, 4WD through some forest tracks – the highlight of which (for my 6 year old daughter) was seeing a dead cow, bloated and not yet smelling, on the side of a track. For the rest of the day it was “can we go back and see the cow?”

The highlight for my wife and I was an excellent lunch of Ribs (made with coke) and wedges at the Old Coast Road Brewery http://www.ocrb.com.au/ , which we found completely by mistake and turned up at covered in dust!

We arrived back at the site about 3.30pm, the group next door were already well lubricated, I headed to the loo, and while sat there thinking (as you do!) spotted a cockroach on the floor lying on his back covered in bits of fluff and hair. I thought that is disgusting it must have been there for ages to be covered in so much fluff and dust! Then it moved! So did I!

After a very brief shall we stay or shall we go, we had everything packed up in the trailer within ½ hour (a record for us) and headed to my Mum and Dads in Pinjarra and their swimming pool!