Summary: Best caravan park in area; great location across from beach, reasonable rates, peaceful and quiet, charmingly friendly owners/staff.

Detailed: The Island View Caravan Park's location is perfect. Directly opposite Kinka beach, who's long sandy, secluded beach is perfect for long strolls, looking for shells, fishing, paddling and island gazing. Great Keppel Island sits prettily on the horizon along with a scattering of smaller islands. Sunset and sunrise bathe the waters in beautiful hues as you wander along to get your evening fish and chips.
The Island View Caravan Park is located walking distance to Causeway Lakes where you can hire paddle boats for a bit of fun. Emu Park is a lovely little town, located just a few minutes' drive away. The Sunday picnic markets are held there once a month there and are well worth a visit. The town of Yeppoon is less than a 15 minute drive, the city of Rockhampton is about 40 minutes drive, and the mountains near Byfield are about 30 minutes.
The Island View Caravan Park itself offers tent sites, caravan/motor home sites and a range of cabins to choose from. There are a few permanent sites; however these appear to be used as occasional holiday homes rather than permanent residences. The caravan park has a relaxed, peaceful feel to it, and allows well behaved dogs. There are a variety of areas for caravan sites, most with grassed area and concrete slab. Sites are level, many are drive through, they are easily accessed and are quite roomy. Most sites have quite a bit of tree shade available. The cabins without en-suites are clean, well laid out and located close to the amenities. They also have top of the range cabins which are spacious, well thought out and designed by the owners themselves.
The amenities block is a little dated, however kept in good condition and very clean. The showers have good pressure and water temperature. There is a camp kitchen which has a hotplate, sink, fridge and table/chairs. The TV / lounge room behind is a little disused, but is good to have. In the laundry the washing machine is $4 per load, the dryer is $2.40 per 30 minutes. There is also an ironing board with plug nearby for those who can't let go of household chores while they are on holiday.
For kids there is a sandy area for them to play, along with a small climbing play area made from tyres, and nearby there is a nice, clean pool. The resident peacock who wanders peacefully about will delight as you cook dinner at the BBQ area, which is sparkling clean and appealing to the eye – and has a nice little walkway made up to it and some picnic tables around. The office offers ice-creams, drinks, confectionary, pre-paid Wi-Fi connection and a friendly chat. There is a photo book available to look through that shows photos of the emu who occasionally wanders through the park, along with many snapshots of happy holiday faces. The office also can post any mail you need posted. We attended a lovely free sausage sizzle which they hold every week or two, it was a lovely sociable occasion.
The rates were reasonable, with discounts for longer stays. Much less than some parks in area, Island View Caravan Park's location and relaxed atmosphere made it the clear best choice all round.

Approximate cost: $31.00

Excellent in every way. Meat is fresh and comes with great advice and service. They do different cuts of meat for you and the price is great. Why would you buy pre-packaged meats from the supermarket chains when you can get fresh quality right here? They also sell lovely local honey, they have eftpos and they are so helpful opening the door for my pram every time.

Excellent country park.
• The people were so friendly and helpful and it has a lot of charm about the park.
• There are lovely views of the surrounding mountains, and the cabin that we used was clean and quite new.
• The sites were grassy and well kept, and they had good roads around the park.
• They have a couple of paddocks with animals such as Alpaca's, goats and horses.
• There is a cute little barn with some comfy old couches in them with a large TV for kids to watch movies on movie nights.
• There is mini golf, large tennis courts and a volleyball court. It also has a small playground.
• There is a pond with large grassy area for kids to run wild.

This park was great, relaxing and fun. I would happily return.

Do your research on the internet, check their price and stock levels on their website (you can even order online now and pickup in store) - but don't expect any customer service. This place is busy, they have no time to chit chat or give you advice. Make your selection, pay and get out. Saturdays and evenings, the line will be out the door and down the street, so bring an audiobook or something. Small credit card surcharge on Visa/Mastercard - but even still so much cheaper than anywhere else and they have the latest hardware in store.

Very affordable accommodation (cheapest in Townsville area) on the banks of the Ross River, on the outskirts of Townsville. The business offers motel units, cabins and caravan/camping - and we have stayed in each of them. Motel is excellent quality for the price, cabins range from great to pretty basic and nice shady, grassy camp sites with a good camp kitchen - toilet block is a little on the older side and could do with an update. Very quiet back street urban setting despite being in a busy suburb, a few hundred meters from 24 hour fast food outlets, bistro and some large shopping malls. Public transport is a short walk away, and nice walks along the river from within the grounds. Hosts are friendly and helpful, and despite being owned by a religious organisation (7th day Adventist), it doesn't intrude on your stay (no drinking or offensive behaviour is allowed though). Highly recommended!

Very nice amenities, but costs and extras are too much.

This is a nice, small park, in an urban type setting. It has a pool (unheated but soon to get heating), Heated spa, undercover BBQ area and camp kitchen, children's play room with couch, toys and big screen tv, meeting room, jumping pillow and mini golf. The spa seemed great, the jumping pillow was really great, the mini golf ok and the meeting room and child's play room were really fantastic.

However the charges were already more considerably higher than the other parks we stay at in the area, but on top of this they charge you $5 to use the spa (timed), they charge you to use mini-golf, you need to give a key deposit of $10 to be able to use the play room. You are not allowed to keep the play room key overnight due to possibility of theft which they have experienced in the past. It would be excellent to be able to use the play room somehow from a very early age for people like myself with noisy little ones who wake at 5am. The jumping pillow was no extra charge and was a lot of fun.

*I have updated a couple of items this review based on the prompt and friendly reply from the owner below*

Approximate cost: $48

Excellent value for money.

We had a powered caravan site and each site comes with your own personal, lockable en suite. These were very clean and well maintained. It was great to be able to leave your towels and toiletries in the bathroom and lovely not to have to do the long trek to amenities blocks in the middle of the night!

Mainly flat, some slightly angular grassy sites and some gravel sites. Nice warm, shady pool, shady bbq area and has a nice playground. Good camp kitchen with full size fridge and not much road noise when I stayed there.

Park is 9.5km out of Bendigo, so out away from the crowds, but still really close to the Kangaroo Flat shopping area with great little shops and other great bigger shops such as Rivers and Aldi. This park doesn't have some of the fancier items such as Jumping pillows and games rooms, but is really great value for a nice smaller park in treed surrounds.

Friendly, helpful owner and great little park. Recommend to all.

Approximate cost: $25

The best chips I have ever experienced.
No, I'm not joking! Even if you're not hungry, just go there and get some of their chips. I could sit eating them for hours if I let myself!
The burgers were a very generous size, and very good quality. I had the chickpea burger and it was excellent. There were a few vegetarian options, plus salads available too. They have the full menu online so look at their website.

But really, without exaggeration - go there just for the chips!

Approximate cost: $10.50

A lovely shopping experience. This is great for kids - it has 2 indoor play areas, plus a HUGE outdoor play area. They also hire out little ride in cars for the kids to get pushed around in while you shop. The information desk give out balloons and they have a kids club that emails you when they have events on - they have great stage shows and kids activities during school holidays. I often just come to the shops not to shop but to give the kids something to do! (And end up shopping anyway...).

It has easy parking, and has all the little speciality shops and big department stores you would expect such as Kmart, Aldi, Safeway, Coles, Target, plus a great fresh fruit and vegie area as well as the external large pet shop which also has the vet clinic in it.

The main playground is located outside the foodcourt, and the one for little toddlers is outside Target, and the other inside playground is located near Coles.

The only real negative is that there are hardly any areas to take your Aldi trolley back to get your coin back out of!

Epping Plaza has all the major shops and speciality shops you could need. Easy parking as you can park all around the whole of the complex, with various entry doors, including an underground car park for hot or rainy days. Parents with prams parking is available making it easier to get closer to the centre with little ones. There is a Big W, a Target, a Safeway, a Coles, Harris Scarf, Best and Less and all the smaller shops. There are two food courts, with the food court near Aldi having a wonderful outdoor playground outside. It is a really well designed playground, good for little and not so little kids, and easy to watch where they are.

In the middle of the shopping centre (all one level) is the fresh food area - it has a large fresh fish shop, market style fruit and vegies and good quality chicken shops and butchers shops.

There is also a Cinema to make it a day out!