Coleto Creek Park

We’ve developed a biennial tradition of camping with our Crazy Train buddies at Coleto Creek Park for the 4th of July holiday weekend. Since this was our first actual camping trip that since the COVID-19 issues sidelined us in March, we got to test out our social distancing skills in a new environment.

Since our friends make this an annual trip, they booked our premium lakefront sites together for this holiday weekend on their visit here last year.  That seems to be something commonly done at this park since those sites go quickly.  Our sites (#13 & #15) were expansive, and perfect for keeping our distance.

Overview

Coleto Creek Park and Reservoir is located in a quiet, rural setting off US 59 about 15 miles from either the small community of Goliad or the medium-sized city of Victoria, depending on the direction you travel.  The park consists of about 200 acres, 40 of which are developed.  The developed areas include a campground, group pavilions, day use area, fishing pier, swimming area, and a boat ramp. The reservoir covers about 3,100 surface acres and serves as a cooling pond for the Coleto Creek Power coal fired power plant. 

While this is a campground and not an RV park, it is big-rig friendly. Once you are in the campground area, almost all of the crushed limestone roads are one-way traffic. We had no problem navigating the roads or pulling into our site in our 38’ motorhome. Likewise, our friends had no problems negotiating roads or the site in their large 5th wheel.  All of the sites here are designed as back-ins, although we chose to pull in to our site so we could enjoy the lake view.

There is no designated trail for lake access from the camping area. Since we were in a lakeside site, that meant that we had multiple people, some with their unleashed pets, walk through our sites in order to get to the lake/beach.  (Leashes are required in the park.)

Activities

As you can imagine, most of the recreation opportunities at Coleto Creek center around the reservoir.  You can swim in the designated swimming area or from any of the park’s sandy beaches.  Fishing is a popular pastime as are boating and kayaking.  There is a 200-foot lighted fishing pier and a fish cleaning station. There is also a four-lane boat ramp that provides the only boat access to the reservoir. 

We enjoyed swimming and floating from the beach near our campsite and paddling our kayaks over near Bird Island to view the many species living there. There’s also a 1.5 mile hiking and nature trail and two wildlife viewing stations. There is a children’s playground and volleyball area available in one of the camping loops.  

In nearby Goliad, you can canoe or kayak on the San Antonio river using one of the three public access points.  There are also semiannual flotilla events hosted by Canoe Trail Goliad.

One of the best parts about being at Coleto Creek over the holiday weekend is the 4th of July fireworks.  While it’s definitely not Disney-level fireworks, we were able to enjoy this year’s show from the beach near our campsite with a cold beverage in hand.  

RV Camping at Coleto Creek Park

There are 79 campsites are Coleto Creek park, all of which are classed as multi-use and can be used by RVs.  Sites have either a crushed limestone or gravel pad, most of which are in reasonable repair.  All sites have 20/30/50 amp electrical service, water, BBQ grill, and a picnic table. No sewer hookups are available.

Many of the larger sites have fire pits. Some sites are well-shaded and others are few or no trees.  There are lakefront premium sites and since there are no sewer hookups, you can opt to park head-in for a water view.

There are a couple of bath houses in the campground, one of which has laundry facilities. The RV campsites are water and electric only so you’ll need to plan on using the dump station.  The campsites are laid out in three loops, one of which has some cut-through roads. All of the roads are one-way traffic and the dump is on the main park road,  so it might be necessary to drive a bit in order to dump your tanks, although the dump itself is easy to access.