Kadina Showground Camping; low cost camping in town
We’re not ones to camp in the middle of towns too often, but we made an exception and made use of the Kadina Showground Camping for a night recently for one reason; we wanted to take the kids to a Christmas Parade.
Where are Kadina Showgrounds?
The Kadina Showgrounds are pretty much in the centre of town, and a short walk to the shops and virtually everything that you need. We walked across to Woolworths and the main park where the Christmas Parade was, and liked its location, asides from the road noise.
What does it cost to stay?
It’s $20 for a powered site, or $10 for an unpowered site. We don’t need power, so paid the $10.
You do have to pay another $20 for a key, which you get back when you return the key at the end of your stay.
What amenities are there?
There are no amenities at the Kadina Showgrounds. Occasionally the toilets might be open, but they are generally closed to the campers, and unless you paid for power, you have nothing else.
You need to be self contained, and take all of your waste off site.
If you need drinking water, you can get it at the visitors centre when you collect the key, and the dump point is a short drive away. We did both prior to setting up camp (and lost our caps in the process!).
What’s it like?
Honestly, its not too bad. For $10, you can’t expect much. There’s no shade, but plenty of room and we were one of a tiny handful of others inside.
Access is through two big gates, and only those with a key can get in, making it reasonably secure. I will say you could easily get in on foot if you wanted, but it does give a bit of peace of mind.
The road noise is reasonable, and worse if you camp near the roundabout, but its never going to be quiet. I’d probably rate the Alford donation camp as nicer overall, but its a decent stay, in what we thought was quite a nice place.
Alternatively, you can watch our YouTube vlog here:
We did our shopping, grabbed some more Christmas presents and then went to the parade, before getting up the next morning and moving on.
You need to be self contained
When you go to the visitors centre, they make you sign a piece of paper that states you are self contained. That means you collect your grey water ‘in a suitably sealed container’, and you have a black water storage system on board.
I argued with Sarah about this, as she says to the letter of the law we don’t comply, as our toilet is portable and not ‘in’ the Reconn R2, and we don’t have a Caravan grey water tank.
Maybe she’s right, and maybe she isn’t, but we didn’t have anyone come over and complain. We simply collected every drop of grey water in a bucket, and then tipped it into our second toilet cassette, to be disposed of at a dump point.
Our portable toilet sat outside our camp and was used for all toileting needs (we had to tell the kids not to pee anywhere else!), and we complied, just maybe not in the usual way.
Kadina Christmas Parade
We really enjoyed the Kadina Christmas Parade. There’s something about the more ‘country’ towns that has a great sense of community, flexibility and passion that you don’t see in the city.
We headed down early and let the kids burn some energy off on the playground, before heading to Mcdonalds for dinner (I think our first visit in 10 weeks!), and then we spent a couple of hours watching the parade and listening to the Christmas Carols.
Our kids were over the moon, and whilst they lost some sleep (and gave us a hard time the next day), it was worth the drive up just for it.
Would we stay again?
If we needed to stay in Kadina, yep, absolutely. I mentioned that the Alford Recreation Park is probably a bit nicer in some ways, and also the Moonta RV Overnight Stay is a great option as well.
In terms of getting what you need to do done in Kadina though, its unbeatable if you are self contained and don’t mind a bit of road noise.
