Campsite Review – Warrego Warmblood Stud – Dam Side

Beautiful one day, windy the next

Everyone always says you shouldn’t camp in winter. To be honest, the cold doesn’t bother me that much. But it’s always a gamble, camping in general is gamble when it comes to the weather. If I look outside today, it’s overcast and we are supposed to get rain this weekend, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. Which is why I normally don’t mind camping at this time.

Last weekend Alison, Sabre and I ventured out to spend the weekend in the great outdoors.

A false start

The place we ended up was actually the second place we booked. The first place was down in the Scenic Rim and it looked lovely. But a week out, the predicted overnight temp was 0º (Zero) and we felt that was just way too cold. So we canceled it and booked a spot north of home instead where the temp was going to be around 8º overnight. Still cold, but bearable.

Are you hip to the camp?

Last year I discovered an app called Hipcamp, basically how I describe it is Air B’n’B for camping. You download their app and you can book camp sites on people’s properties. We love this, as most of the time they are completely private. We have stayed at 3 so far and all have been fantastic. They can vary in price and also amenities. Most are self-sufficient, so you have to bring your own toilet, water and shower, which we have, so this is no issue. Some are only $10 per night per person and some a lot more. However most allow camp fires and dogs, which is important for us.

Hipcamp

Warrego Warmblood Stud – Dam Side

We turned up on Friday afternoon and spoke to the owner on the phone, they were away for the day so couldn’t be there to greet us. Normally the owners do greet you, but obviously they can’t wait around all day for you.

Amy sounded lovely on the phone and gave us the directions to get to our site. Me being the goldfish brain I am, forgot half of them and we took a wrong turn. But a quick phone call to Amy put us back on the right track.

We found our little campsite beside the dam. The sun was shining through the trees and it was glorious. We got to work setting up our campsite, which took way longer than normal for some reason, getting old I guess. Once we were done, we sat down and enjoyed the view.

I will add that camping beside the dam had the advantage of being able to pump water for our Joolca shower directly from the dam. This worked a treat and we basically had unlimited hot water. Very happy with our purchase there.

The site was relatively flat with a number of places to setup the camper. We found one next to an existing camp fire pit. The site was also surrounded by a forest of paperbark trees, which as we discovered later, gave us great shelter from the wind.

Evening came and we got a fire going. I will admit that I am not the best fire builder. I follow the instructions I have been told and learned and I can only sometimes get a good fire going, although I will admit that the firewood you get from the servo is always too hard and I suck with an Axe. Sure it will burn longer, but getting it to burn is a mission.

Before we went on this trip I purchased a Ryobi Shop Blower with a feather trigger. Best $80ish I spent, blasting the fire (lightly) help a lot (thanks to my mate Brendan for that tip).

We did get a fright at one stage when a herd of horses emerged out of the dark to drink at the dam. They didn’t seem bothered by us though and they returned the next day while we packed up.

It was cold that night and Alison headed to bed early. I was tired, but stayed up and watch from F1 on my (now smokey smelling) iPad. After which I headed to our warm bed, only to be woken up at 1am…

It came like a roaring thunder…

Maybe thunder is not the right term, but at 1am, the wind came and boy did it make itself known. With all the trees around, we thankfully were sheltered from most of it, however, the noise was something else. Have you ever stood at the bottom of a large waterfall? Basically it sounded like that and it didn’t stop. I eventually fell back to sleep after lying there awake going over in my head if anything outside was not secure and could blow away. Everything was, but it took me awhile to figure it out, plus it was so cold that I just couldn’t bring myself to get up.

Morning came at 5am, which is when our pup wants to eat each day. So we get up and feed him, empty our bladders and then go back to bed hoping to catch some more zzzzz.

The wind had died a little, but was still noisy.

We awoke at about 7am and the wind had picked up again and there it stayed. That loud waterfall of sound continued on through the day. After breakfast, which BTW was tasty, but didn’t work the way I hoped. The incident happened. Now we actually had talked about calling it quits and heading home, the wind was supposed to stick around all day and into the night and it was too windy to light a fire, so it was at the front of our minds.

All of sudden Alison felt something in her eye and she was struggling to get it out. My suggestion was to rinse it out with some water, but she is not a fan of putting water in her eyes, so the pouring water in her eye was out. After a while of not having any luck getting it out, I filled up a bucket and while it was uncomfortable for Alison to put her head in the bucket and open her eye, like a trooper, she did and eventually it came out. Took awhile though and after I saw the spec of dirt or whatever it was sitting in the bottom of the bucket, I understood her pain.

This was it anyway, the wind was not letting up and we decided to pull the plug. After all that time setting up the day before, we started pulling it down.

It’s all good, we know that camping can be hit and miss sometimes. The last trip we took in April we got rained out. We still love it and I can honestly say that half through setting up (and packing down), I knew I couldn’t wait for our new camper, which will dramatically decrease the setup and pack-up time.

That all being said, the place was beautiful and we would go back there in a heartbeat….when it’s not windy and maybe when it’s warmer.

I rate this site as 🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴 (5 horses out of 5).

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