Day 1 – Home to Ariah Park
After a busy 2 weeks of our annual SpringFest where we open our garden to the public we were able to pack up the garden, pack the motorhome and by 4pm we were ready to go. We looked at each other over a cuppa and said what are we waiting for? We may as well get going now instead of in the morning.
So we set off and made it as far as Ariah Park. Ariah Park is only 120km from Griffith but we’ve stayed at their beautiful little campground many times over the years, usually in summer on our way to and from the annual family water skiing holiday and we like to get a powered site because it is so hot in January. This time we didn’t need a powered site so we stayed in an unpowered one for $10 per night.
To book in you go to the pub, pay your fee and they give you a key to the amenities (which we didn’t need anyway). Once at the pub we had a cold beer and decided to stay for dinner and another cold beer. The beer was lovely and the glasses were cold before they even poured the beer! Perfect!
What a delicious pub meal. I had a chicken parmi with mash and veggies and Rich opted for the bangers and mash. They were both great. We recommend you stop for a cold one or a meal at the Ariah Park Hotel if you are going that way.
While chatting with the bar staff we found out that they were all very busy prepping for the following weekend for their annual Ariah Park B&S Ball to be held at the showground. We did think the showground was looking pretty clean and tidy as we drove in to town. Now we knew why.
We were told they had pre-sold 1600 tickets for the B&S and were now sold out. This is amazing for a tiny town of only 300 people. This year’s ball is being called the Last Hurrah and it will be the last B&S. Sadly insurance costs and liability is becoming too expensive. So the town is going all out to make sure the last hurrah is a huge success.
People will start arriving in town on the Friday and the pub has live music and karaoke on as well as a regular shuttle bus to and from the showground to ferry people back and forth. The Bowling Club is also running a shuttle bus to and from over the weekend.
We hope the B&S Ball is a big success for the tiny town and feel it’s such a shame that it will be the last. We are 69 and 71 and fondly remember going to B&S balls when we were young. We’d travel great distances to attend one, party all night and all day, sleep then drive home again. They were great fun and a part of country life.
It was a quiet night in the campground in spite of it being nearly full. The powered site end was pretty full of various sized rigs and a large group of campers were sitting around a fire pit when we arrived. Most of them gave a cheery wave as we went by and parked up in the non-powered area on a lovely green grassy site.
We’d recommend this great little campground. It has 24 powered sites and numerous unpowered. It is situated in a corner of the Recreation Ground and has amenities, a camp kitchen, gas BBQ and is pet friendly. The skate park is on the grounds and next door is the town swimming pool. The main part of town is a short walk away.
