Esperance Pink Lake Tourist Park — Hotel in Nulsen

Stayed at Pink Lake tourist park for 15 days in January 22. Our first visit to esperance. We booked in April 21. After travelling 8.5 hours, we arrived 40mish to be given powered site 30 - which was tiny. Even if we could've had swing room to reverse our 17ft expanda in there (which we didn't have), the bed ends woukdve had us nearly at the road, and if we'd had our awning up that would've taken up nearly the whole site. No room to park our 4wd, except butted up half on the road. These sites should not be classed as van sites, they are simply too small. We saw a camper trailer go in there after we declined it and even that was squishy. We ended up accidently finding the 'not ready' sites at the back of the park, where other caravanbers were set up. Power, water, fake grass down to step onto out of your van and some street lights. All gravel with zero trees, but the site sizes were decent and manageable. This section is a work in progress we were told. Why we had to find this and ask if we could use I'm still confused at. If we hadn't seen this, we were told they were fully booked and there was nowhere else for us - we wouldve had to go overflow camp at the towns oval (no power/water). Pink lake tourist park is an older park that has 2 main (older) ablution sites and laundry (x 2). These ablutions would benefit from a makeover. A bouncy pillow for the kids which was very popular! Sadly no pool, which wouldve been awesome. A well maintained communal herb garden next to the under cover camp kitchen was beautiful. Towards the back where we canped was a new ablution block. This consisted of 6 x individual mini bathrooms which each had a toilet shower, basin, mirror, automatic soap dispensers and electric hand dryer. All very new, but sadly most of the toilet seats were broken somehow and kept sliding off the porcelain. The soap in the dispensers was watered down that much you had to get 3 squirts to properly wash your hands. Locks on the doors were very good but only one had an 'engaged/vacant' sign on it, so you'd constantly get someone trying to push in your door (this freaked our kids out!) No boom gate for camp security though (it was there but not operational). Staff were always friendly and inviting. Once we got past our initial camp-site issue we had no problems.

Overall a good park with heaps...

This is the worst camp site I have ever stayed at! After driving for seven and a half hours from Perth to Esperance, we were glad to have finally arrived. However, the staff at Pink Lake turned out to be anything but welcoming. From the moment we arrived, it felt like we were being treated as a problem rather than guests. The time was 10:10pm and it was our first night staying here. We were seated outside our tent and a car sped straight towards us. The car stopped about a metre from me with its high beams blinding us. An aggressive man got out of the car and began yelling. It felt like a scene from wolf creek. This was Tim and he made it clear that he didn’t want us here. He was rude and unreasonable and forced us to get to bed at once. He also threatened to pack up our belongings and kick us out if we didn’t do what he demanded. Tim stayed shining his high beams until we went to bed. I was brushing my teeth and finally saw him reversing away. I waved goodbye to him and then he sped straight for me, almost hitting me for the second time. He began yelling again, this time he seemed triggered by my wave and said we were being smart. Tim approached us the next day at 3pm. He threatened us again and said that he didn’t want a repeat of what happened last night. We certainly didn’t want that either and so we went to the camp office and explained how we felt. We spoke to Dianne who is the camp manager and she got her husband Tim to join the conversation. Tim said he was being proactive but it’s not okay for him to threaten people just because he thinks they might cause a problem. I understand the importance of having a quiet campsite however we were not being noisy and we weren’t going to be noisy. If you’re part of a young group looking for a pleasant place to camp, I suggest finding somewhere else. We won’t...

It’s Easter & I understand it’s busy, with loads of families. There are 2 sections to the park, which I did not know on booking, the noisy, packed in like sardines, dated, sad, dirty amenities, patchy grassy looking spot near your site & a particularly patchy dirty holey bit of green tarp? Earwigs making a nest under the tarp thing. Dogs off leash & wandering the park, a dog right next to us that barked & growled at anyone that came near their van & jumped at my husband mere centimetres from his face & tried to get at me from under the van. My husband approached them in a few occasions about their dog.

People waking up at 6am & made damn sure the rest of the people in the area around them woke up at that time too.

What really irked me was the amenities (block 3) & the condition people left them in… one morning there was water all over the floor, toilet paper all over the floor, hair hanging off the benches, mud everywhere & a group of women & children totally oblivious to the mess. I was a cleaner, in a previous life, & my heart went out to the amazing cleaning staff that had to deal with that. Some people take advantage of these facilities with free abandon.. and it’s wrong.

The “top” section of the park was like walking into an entirely different caravan park, quiet, huge sites (have no idea if they are the same cost as the “sardines” area we were booked in). Clean amenities, sometimes a bit wet & yuk, a huge green grassy mat by your front door & very well maintained with beautiful gardens…

The laundry washer & dryers are $6 each per load!?!? The highest I have ever seen on my travels!

Moral to my lengthy story? Book in to the new section… I booked months in advance & was left to the powers that be to book me “somewhere”.

Not...