Half of Loxton Riverfront Holiday Park flooded as impacts of rising River Murray felt in SA

One half of a Loxton caravan park has flooded, with operators predicting the situation will “heavily affect” busy summer and Christmas periods and is unlikely to improve until the new year.

The rising River Murray has flooded one half of a caravan park in Loxton, but park operators say it’s “business as usual”.

The Big 4 Loxton Riverfront Holiday Park was forced to close around 150-180 powered and unpowered sites as water inundated a large section of the park.

Park manager Samuel Obst said while half the park sits above 1956 flood levels, the other half is on a flood plain.

“Initially groundwater was starting to come through because of the high river and we were pumping water back out into the river for around two months,” he said.

“It was starting to rise quicker than we were pumping it out, so after the October long weekend we gave it away and now there’s probably a million carp down there.”

But Mr Obst insisted it was “business as usual” with 40 powered sites and the park’s cabins still in operation.

Loxton caravan park flooded., Picture: Facebook/Murray River Pix

Loxton caravan park flooded., Picture: Facebook/Murray River Pix

“It will obviously heavily affect our summer and Christmas periods because I can’t see the river level situation improving until sometime early next year,” he said.

“But we aren’t turning people away, there are still opportunities to book up in our top area,” he said.

Mr Obst said the feedback from visitors in the past couple of weeks had been great.

“Everyone likes the big lake, so we can’t complain,” he said.

Water levels will not peak until early next month, but SA inflows have already exceeded the expectations of the Department for Environment and Water.

Using the SA Water data for its predictions, the department expected the high point to be 75-80GL a day by late early November, but that has already been reached. Heavy rain has continued in the basin.

The water flow is already the highest the Murray has been since 2016 when daily flows reached 95GL.

Darren Ray, a former meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology and consulting climatologist, says South Australia can expect above-average rainfall and cooler temperatures through to the end of the year – with a soggy Christmas Day very likely.

Mr Ray studies cycles of tropical activity, which give an indication of potential rainfall and temperature months in advance. The independent climatologist said rain was set to give way to finer, warmer days through the end of October, before the wet weather picked up again at the end of October to early November.