With demand for campsites surging, South Australia’s Mount Gambier Showgrounds are expanding the facilities offered to grey nomads and other travellers.
Plans have been approved to increase the number of campsites on offer from nine to 30 … and the Mount Gambier Agricultural and Horticultural Society is thrilled to be able to cater to more visitors.
The society’s president, Brian Kerr, told the Border Watch newspaper that the campsite was often fully booked, and he hoped that increasing availability would enable more people to visit Mount Gambier.
“The demand for camping out there has been unprecedented in the last three years,” he said. “We’ve been turning people away hand over fist.”
The extra campsites will allow more visitors to enjoy the many attractions in the Mount Gambier area, like the extinct volcanic crater at Valley Lake. PIC: Clarko1959 / Pexels
The society initially applied to increase the number of sites from nine to 22, but was given approval for 30 sites on the condition that it installed a grey water system and some fire hose reels.
Work is currently underway to install these new amenities, and Mr Kerr told Border Watch that it would not impact the availability of the current nine sites.
“We’re probably 80% of the way through doing those works,” he said. “We’ve got our grey water system in place and, in the next few weeks, we hope to put our fire hose reels in place, so that then we can open up to our potential to our 30 sites.”
Mr Kerr said creating more campsites would help put money back into the upkeep of the showgrounds, and he hoped it would also benefit local businesses and tourism providers.
“I hope that having that facility there will enable more people to stay locally in the South East and in Mount Gambier and have a look at our region,” he told Border Watch. “We’ll have more tourists in the area and more people wanting to stay and to spend some money with us in the local area.”
The new sites at Mount Gambier Showgrounds are set to open by the end of March.
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It’s lighter to carry, takes up less space in your van, is easy to store in your fridge or esky, and is great for life on the road.
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