With the Murray River flooding we were keen to see more of it, whilst staying away from those busy doing important work, and not putting ourselves at risk. The Coorong National Park was mentioned a few times, and we booked a night at the bottom of the National Park at 42 Mile Crossing, with the idea of extending if it was good.
We booked one night at 42 Mile Crossing Campground to check it out
Where is the Coorong National Park?
Roughly an hour and a half from Adelaide lies the Coorong National Park, which takes up a huge amount of land from near Goolwa all the way down the coast to near Kingston SE.
We really enjoyed looking at the Murray River mouth from Goolwa and wanted to see more of the Coorong National Park
Where is 42 Mile Crossing Campground?
42 Mile Crossing Campground is located in the southern part of the Coorong National Park, and is a short drive off the main highway. It’s a couple of kilometres back off the beach, in a well protected, grassy area with dunes and tree’s offering shade and reducing the wind significantly.
What’s the campground like?
I was really impressed with the campground at 42 Mile Crossing. There’s a sign up saying they are doing upgrades, but the actual campground is really nice; its got a heap of lawn sections where you can camp, an undercover camp kitchen and two normal drop toilets.
We were all really surprised at how good this camp site is
We had a huge amount of bird life including 4 baby Willy Wag Tail birds, a snake and plenty of parrots nearby, and the access to the beach makes for a nice touch.
We had a nest of older Willy Wag Tail birds right near camp
The bird life here was surprisingly plentiful
We were all quite surprised at how nice the campground actually is. We weren’t expecting 42 Mile Crossing Campground to be anything amazing, and its actually one of the nicer National Park camp sites that we’ve been to in terms of room, views, grass and protection. We all left pleasantly surprised.
42 Mile Crossing Campground Beach Access
You can drive to the beach from 42 Mile Crossing really easily, if you have a 4WD. Alternatively, you can make a 1.2km walk by foot, and you’ll pop out onto the beach.
If you are taking a vehicle, it must be 4WD, and you need to understand tyre pressures, and how to drive on the beach. The track to the beach was quite rough when we did it, from people who clearly don’t let their tyres down enough.
Once you get onto the beach, there’s limited room to turn around if its high tide, and we met someone who ended up in a big jam, despite running low tyre pressures and taking it easy. We drove on the beach for a little while in each direction, but didn’t go too far as we weren’t sure what the tide was doing (and no reception on the beach!), and we just wanted to check it out.
We spent a bit of time driving around, but didn’t check the tides prior
There’s a few clearings but for the most part the beach is pretty narrow
We did meet a couple of guys who’d driven the whole way up to the Murray River Mouth, which is a fair old slog!
You’ve got to be comitted to drive 100km up the beach!
Do you need a 4WD?
To get to 42 Mile Crossing campground, you absolutely do not need a 4WD. Its bitumen along the highway, and then a short gravel drive in (which has quite a few ‘pot holes’). To get to the beach, you’d not make it 5 metres without a 4WD.
You don’t need a 4WD to get to the camp, but you do to get to the beach
Would we stay again?
In a heartbeat. As I said above, we were all quite surprised at how nice this spot was, and while I’m not sure what upgrades are taking place its well worth a look, and a stay. We kept our tyres down for the stay and headed to the beach a couple of times, then back to camp to get out of the wind, which was awesome.
We all thoroughly enjoyed this spot
Have you been to 42 Mile Crossing Campground? What did you think of it?
