Tarra Valley Retreat

Excellent riverside location and surrounding natural attractions, but the place itself is designed primarily for cabins and powered campervan and caravan sites, and wasn't the best for tents. The small central area of unpowered sites are a bit sloped, are mostly dirt, have poorly marked boundaries, and are underneath large gum trees which even management have attached signs to, warning of falling branches, which we saw happen during our stay. It would be very easy for them to oversell the unpowered sites if campers all came with larger tent setups, and you'd end up as a cramped cluster, esp if trying to get further away from the gums, as there's nowhere else on site to expand to. It was pretty quiet during our stay but we chatted to a couple who come here regularly who said the place gets absolutely packed on long weekends and holidays, often overflowing across the road to areas signed "no camping". If you have a larger tent and camp kitchen setup I would recommend doing what we did and get a larger and flatter powered site. You'll be potentially nestled between a row of caravans but at least away from the trees, though when it rained heavily we had poor drainage and got a bit swamped. The main communal kitchen is nice, access to a bbq, microwave, kettle, some dining tables, and an outdoor washing sink, was good be able to get out of the rain one night, but I wouldn't rely on using it during busy times, as larger groups tended to easily take over the space. There's similarly only 2 operating toilets and showers in the mens block for a potentially full park to use. Purchasing firewood was an issue, poor and unfriendly phone communication with the owners telling us we should have organised buying firewood in advance and told us to do a 40 minute round trip to the nearest town to get some, even though there are signs that say you can call once there and pay over the phone. It turned out they had bagged wood on site the whole time. Would I go back? Maybe just for the nature? I'd probably take a van or book a cabin though.

We were invited to a 50th this Friday... leaving today. Planned for months, multiple confirmation emails from property , including calls yesterday - international guests, people rented vans, catering... 3 hours before Checkin owners lackey called our hosts and cancelled our trip. Don't go, complete joke. Ruined and our family can no longer get accom anywhere last minute. Owner didnt event have the decency to call our hosts himself to explain. Who stays at places run but gronks like this ?