Meadowlands Campground

Beautiful provincial park on the shore of Charleston Lake, great swimming and biking. Don’t pick up sticks for your fire pit. They throw the book at you.

The

My rate was a senior rate.

Charleston Lake is a beautiful place to paddle. Motorboats are prohibited in the bay adjacent to the park. They started a new guided canoe/kayak program this year. Two knowledgeable staff members led our group on an informative tour around part of the bay. I certainly hope that this program continues at Charleston Lake and is expanded to other Provincial Parks.

It should be noted that there is no park store for groceries, but there is a small private campground store just south of the park and a chain store in nearby Landsdowne (don’t let the exterior mislead you. It is larger inside than it appears for the street).

As with other Ontario Provincial Parks, it is often difficult to get a reservation—particularly on long weekends. I was meeting a group of friends from PopupPortal. We were arriving on the Monday prior to the Civic Holiday in August. Three of us were on messenger before 7am on the day that reservations were to open. Only 1 of us was able to get a reservation at that time. I ended up with a non-electric site. It was quite apparent that people book 23 days prior to their intended camping days and cancel the extra days. Eventually, 6 families were
able to get reservations due to cancellations, but 2 were not. This happened to another group I camped with at Arrowhead on the July 1st weekend. SO frustrating!

I stayed for 1 night enroute to Maryland.
The campground is made up of 10 campsites in each of 5 cul de sacs that are grouped around a comfort station.
The expansive day use/beach area is beautiful! The staff obviously take great pride in keeping the park well-maintained!

Canadian heatwave early Sept. 2023 ! We work/camp for about six months a year so have had a lot of experience to compare campgrounds we visit. This one was about the most frustrating.
Can't complain about the weather eh? or the bugs - they were definitely loving the heat. This campground seams to have some age to it. More "rustic" camping than "RV" camping. Coming in on Rt. 3 from the South- the road sign still points to a dead end rd where the camp road used to be. Don't turn on Woodvale Rd., Look for the Main Campground sign. The interior roads in the loop sections were pretty chewed up.
Next up - had to switch sites with our traveling companions because the power pedestal was a good 30 meters or about 100ft. from the camper pad. They had a looong extension and made it work. Next site had to jockey the camper way off the intended pad to make our 30 ft cord reach the Ped. - It seems like a non-camper, non-RVer designed the whole place. The pedestals were shared between two sites and usually placed in the middle of the woods. No water hookups (which we knew about) but on the second to last day a note appeared on the common water spigot that said not to drink it, also notes on the bathhouse sinks and near the potable water at pumpout station. Alarming since we connected three hoses to it on the arrival day and filled up our tanks. Finally tracked down a part employee and they said it's probably OK to drink the water in the RV tanks because they test the water every day. Weeellll OK Then! No one got sick. So all is good.