Day 1 Tuesday 13/12/2022 Home to Camperdown, overcast 20˚

We have a good run up the Eastlink tollway but the Monash grinds to a halt at Moira Street. We sit in stop-start traffic surrounded by trucks and wondering if the delay is caused by the Westgate Metro Tunnel works. For no reason it clears at Richmond and we’re off again. On the Geelong Road we’re punching into a headwind. We’re laughing about our late mate El Prado’s love of pies, when we realise that the GPS has sent us on a different road. Obviously, she (Gabbi Garmin) doesn’t want to go the more direct route via Colac. This route will take us north of the lakes on a road we haven’t been on before, the B140 the Hamilton Highway.

At Inverleigh we stop, it’s raining and 14˚. We find this to be a charming little village. There’s a cosy old bakehouse with perfect pies, the best-ever coffee scrolls, and good coffee. Next door there’s an inviting pub but it’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

We’re munching and slurping and trying not to wear our pies, as we leave the tree-lined streets of Inverleigh. We turn south into Foxhow Road which takes us down a narrow spit of land between two lakes to Camperdown.

We ring VeeWee to find that she’s having trouble with a soft unlevel site. She rings the offsite campground office and is told to pick any of the higher dry slab sites. The weather see-saws from warm sunshine to drenching rain every 20 minutes or so. The wind is fierce.

Lakes and Craters Holiday Park is a small but pretty park on a high ridge about 4kms south of the town. The sites are well-grassed and shaded by ornamental trees. On either side of this ridge is a crater lake. Lake Gnotuk to the north and Lake Bullen Merri to the south. At the western end of the park is the Camperdown Botanic Garden which was designed by William Guilfoyle in 1888. We’re surprised that we’ve never heard of this park before. There’s no problem with phone and TV reception as we’re parked close to the Telstra towers. The bathrooms are near-new and excellent. There is a small open camp kitchen which is much too cold for happy hour today so we retreat to VeeWee’s smart living room in the new Winnebago after a quick sprint around town.

We cook spring rolls in the air fryer for dinner.

Accom: $21.00

Fuel: $78.00

Towing Kms: 243kms