Tarra Valley Retreat

Have visited Tarra Valley Retreat twice now. We own a caravan but each time we camped in our tent. The location is stunning, surrounded by mountain ash trees, tree ferns & beautiful birds. The birdsong at dawn is divine. Our recent trip was with our grandchildren & although we enjoyed our stay we were disrupted by a party held in one of the communal areas, adjacent to our site, it was a rainy night, hence I assume their decision to utilise the communal area. The party did switch off around 10pm but the noise level was horrendous, the swearing, the music blaring. Obnoxious selfishness of drunk revellers. My grandkids were extremely disrupted, unable to sleep. Unfortunately the care taker did not seem very interested in my feedback around this party when I spoke with her the next morning. That they switched off around 10pm was seemingly sufficient in her mind. Although she did say she'd speak to them. The next night the party continued, fortunately for us, it was over the other side, where the revellers were camping. Not rainy that night. I felt for the campers over that side, as it was again loud, screaming, drunk people. The wildlife must find this extremely disruptive too, afterall the valley is their home. Not sure if we would ever visit again given this interaction. Disappointed in the caretakers reaction too, not at all customer focused.

Great place to stay. Lack of service (ie none after hours) so if a non urgent problem contact only in office hours by phone. So what happened, whilst we there the water stopped running. Can’t be helped but would have been good to get early assistance before morning toilet run! We had a powered site by the river and use of fire pit - just no water!. Enjoyed our stay! Update on this post…. Management did respond once contact made during office hours. A team was on site all day checking on the problem and updating all campers. A tree had fallen on the hose that fed the tanks! It happens in a forest, even a beautiful one like this! So I am updating my service star review - they reacted as soon as they heard about it and sorted the problem. Happy campers!

Great location, nestled along the river. We stayed in Rosella Cabin, it's showing its age but it was clean and tidy. The fan in the bathroom didn't work. We brought our own firewood which was very cosy. The retreat facilities were good camp kitchen was neat and tidy, just a little weathered/worn out. A good little kids playground and a Telstra payphone out the front that works. There is no reception but the wifi was good. The place has a certain charm about it and again, the location was wonderful. The drive through the national park to get to the retreat is stunning, very skinny road though, drive slowly.

We stayed on a powered site with our 8m caravan. Such a pretty place, amenities good, quiet and serene. Easy check in.

Beautiful location with incredible nature all around you. The river, ferns and bird life are just magnificent. The grounds are well maintained and the facilities are clean. As others have mentioned, management appear to be quite hands off ~ we didn’t see anyone throughout our stay, but that wasn’t an issue. Other travellers including dogs were respectful. An easy, breezy stay!

Very basic but located in a green bush land close to river. Very natural and preserved with minimal disturbance to nature. We loved this place. I would definitely go back again.

Excellent riverside location and surrounding natural attractions, but the place itself is designed primarily for cabins and powered campervan and caravan sites, and wasn't the best for tents. The small central area of unpowered sites are a bit sloped, are mostly dirt, have poorly marked boundaries, and are underneath large gum trees which even management have attached signs to, warning of falling branches, which we saw happen during our stay. It would be very easy for them to oversell the unpowered sites if campers all came with larger tent setups, and you'd end up as a cramped cluster, esp if trying to get further away from the gums, as there's nowhere else on site to expand to. It was pretty quiet during our stay but we chatted to a couple who come here regularly who said the place gets absolutely packed on long weekends and holidays, often overflowing across the road to areas signed "no camping". If you have a larger tent and camp kitchen setup I would recommend doing what we did and get a larger and flatter powered site. You'll be potentially nestled between a row of caravans but at least away from the trees, though when it rained heavily we had poor drainage and got a bit swamped.||The main communal kitchen is nice, access to a bbq, microwave, kettle, some dining tables, and an outdoor washing sink, was good be able to get out of the rain one night, but I wouldn't rely on using it during busy times, as larger groups tended to easily take over the space. There's similarly only 2 operating toilets and showers in the mens block for a potentially full park to use.||Purchasing firewood was an issue, poor and unfriendly phone communication with the owners telling us we should have organised buying firewood in advance and told us to do a 40 minute round trip to the nearest town to get some, even though there are signs that say you can call once there and pay over the phone. It turned out they had bagged wood on site the whole time.||Would I go back? Maybe just for the nature? I'd probably take a van or book a cabin though.

Not good people to deal with. We tried to book a cabin and they said they were fully booked, they were not. We then said we would camp and booked a camp site, very expensive, $65 for 3 cyclists in small tents. We then asked about the camp kitchen, specifically did it have pots and pans for cooking and were told it was fully stocked. It did not have a single pot or pan. I do not like being lied to. I would have given it less stars because of the lying, but the place is nice and clean and a good location. If you don't want cyclists in your cabins just say so. 1 cabin was occupied and there was one other guest in the park.