Campground Review–Brookville Lake, Mounds Recreation Area

Dates we stayed here:  Saturday, July 23, 2011 – Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Location:  Mounds Recreation Area is off IN-101, about halfway between Liberty (to the north) and Brookville (to the south).  It’s about 8 miles to either town, and Brookville is probably slightly bigger.

Brookville Lake is a COE Reservoir, but it has (2) Indiana State Parks on it – Mounds Recreation Area, and Quakertown Recreation Area.  We stayed at Mounds because they have a full hookup loop.

Our site: #C25

There are two sections to the campground – the A through G loops, and the other, older section (the loops aren’t identified).  All of the roads and sites are paved.  The sites in the older section are definitely smaller, and there weren’t too many that looked suitable for a big rig. 

The A through G loops, however, were set up nicely for big rigs, and there were lots of sites that we could have fit on.  All of these loops had nice grass and good shade; the sites were angled to the road, and had lots of space between them – not to mention the center of each loop, which was basically a big, open grassy playing area. 

Loops B, D, E, F and G are electric only, but still very nice sites

NOTE: Loop “A” isn’t really a loop; it’s the main road that connects all the other loops, and it has a few sites scattered along it.  A1 – A5 are full hookup, also.

Interestingly (I wouldn’t have expected it), the C loop (full hookup) had the best shade, with pretty much every site having a large shade tree.  With temps pushing 100 degrees while we were there, and even though we kept both A/Cs running non-stop, we were mighty glad for the shade!

Looking down C loop, towards our camper

We had full hookup with 50 amp electric, which was very reliable.  Even with the high temperatures, and everybody running the A/C, we never had in interruption in electric, or even low voltage.

The park does not have cable or wifi, but we picked up a few TV channels with our batwing antenna, and I used PDA.net to tether my laptop to Nicolas’ new phone.  Our Verizon signal was very good.

We paid $27.03 per night, plus a 1-time entry fee of $7 for the vehicle.

Amenities:

The campground has a campstore with basic groceries, souvenirs, ice cream, some local produce, and a small laundry facility (1 washer; 1 dryer).  They also have a boat launch, (2) dump stations, and a large playground in the back of the A-G loops.

There are (3) bath houses along the main road that connects loops A through G, and they seemed to be well-kept, although we never used them.  Bryce went in one the first day, and said it was too hot – he needed A/C!

We did a lot of walking and bike-riding through our section of the campground, which was nice because of all the shade.  One evening, we took a ride to the campstore for ice cream and rode around the other section of the campground.  The only problem was that there was a pretty big hill that you went down, and it was a little tough going back up.

The beach is pretty far from the campground loops, and it’s at the bottom of a HUGE hill, so bike-riding was out of the question (plus the road had zero shoulders, so it wouldn’t be too safe).

The beach was very nice, even though it has Indiana sand (not Michigan sand!).  The beach is very wide; the swimming area is clearly marked; and the water is clean.  There is a large parking lot, and several overflow parking lots (each with a bath house – pretty convenient!).  They have a concession stand which offers ice cream, drinks, candy, and sandwiches – their prices didn’t look too bad, either!

We really enjoyed our few days at this campground, and we would definitely stay here again.  There was a lot to see & do in the area – we did some geocaching in Brookville, went to mass at St. Michael the Archangel in Brookville, and found a nice produce stand just north of the campground.  We never even drove to other areas around the lake (which is huge!), but may on a future visit.  There was a canoe outfitter in Brookville also, that we heard was a really good trip, but we didn’t end up checking it out – maybe next time!