CAMPSITE # 169 - Freshwater Campsite, Rainbow Beach QLD

We were trying to be very strategic when choosing our campsite on the Cooloola Coast in Rainbow Beach. School Holidays meant hundreds and hundreds of people crowding the whole beachfront and the last thing we felt like doing was spending the last week of our trip having to contend with the school holiday crowd.

We wanted a campsite that was nice and secluded, somewhere that we wouldn't be camped right on top of our neighbour but somewhere that was still within walking distance to the beach. When booking our 4WD passes at the Rangers office, we were informed that they were preparing to have their second busiest weekend of the year to date. We quickly responded by querying the whereabouts of the quietest campsite. That's how we found - 

Site : Freshwater Campsite
Rating : 11 / 20
Facilities : Dappled woodland, lovely and shady area, within 200metres walk to the beach. Hot showers available for $1 = 4 minutes except it's the only campsite in the whole area with hot showers so there was a line up of 20 women to use the showers - urgh!! $5 per person per night for camping, $30 for a 4-7 day 4WD pass.

Tom took a 1.3km stroll to the Freshwater Lake and returned to inform me that after all of the freshwater waterholes that we'd seen during the last 12months of our journey, the Freshwater Lake was quite a let down. I suppose you can expect that once you've seen so many beautiful things, places with limited beauty just don't seem to shine like they used to.


Welcome to the world of having to deal with School Holiday campers. Driving on the beach during school holidays alongside all of those irresponsible rev heads is an absolute nightmare. Tom and I went for a walk down to the beach from our campsite and sat and watched the highway of cars racing along the beach at a million miles an hour. We sat right at a creek inlet watching the tide rushing out creating mini-cliff like drops along the way. The legal speed limit on Teewah Beach is 60km/hr but anyone who has ever driven a 4WD on the beach knows that you can never expect to be driving a continuous & steady 60km/hr and that you must be prepared to come to a complete halt in preparation for soft sand, washouts and any other points of danger. Some people proceed at snails pace with absolute & extreme caution while others like to show off how rough and tough they are by pressuring slower drivers and being altogether irresponsible. Combine these two types of drivers on one stretch of beach and it results in absolute beachfront chaos. Road rage on the beach surely is not my idea of a good time.