Lake Lascelles in Hopetoun is an absolute oasis in the Mallee country. Parts of the foreshore, closest to the town is for paid camping with power and even quirky cabins which I will cover a bit later in this post.
We free camped on the eastern side of the lake, which is the free camping area and within metres of the lake's edge. We met up again with our friends, Gary and Joy here. They have a huge 30ft bus style motorhome, towing a large trailer and they can easily fit here.
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| Room enough for big rigs as well as medium ones like ours on the right :) |
Hopetoun is about 400km (5 hours) from Melbourne and 200km south of Mildura. It is only a small community with about 600 people, but it has everything you need as far as supplies go: an IGA, a service station, pub, butcher, bakery, pharmacy and a decent cafe. The people of this town are very friendly and welcome visitors into their small community with open arms.
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| Lake Lascelles |
The day before we turned up, our friends who had arrived before us, witnessed a wedding being held on the other side of the lake to them. Even the water skiers stopped their pleasure craft out of respect for the actual ceremony. Yep water sport is a popular activity there but it never became a noise issue while we were there for which we are grateful. Instead it provided light visual entertainment. The bird life is abundant as would be expected near permanent water. There is also a permanent Black Swan in resident who might visit your site.
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| Michelle with our visitor |
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| The Black Swan wanted to enter Gary"s Joy |
We used this camp site as a base and from here we went for a drive to Patchewollock where we saw our next painted silos. We were also pleasantly surprised to see lovely corrugated birds there too. Our trip took in approx 140km round trip.
I mentioned earlier that there is a powered camping area. It is relatively low cost being $15 dollars per night and are based on an honesty system with random checks, as is the hot water for showers. One also has the Mallee Bush Retreat accommodation area. What a fabulous place for group camps. The buildings are built from local materials like wood, stone and corrugated iron and have a marvellous rustic feel. It is a fantastic complex and offers unique accommodation for a very moderate prices. They also have shimmering Silo Cabins up on stilts, with wooden windows. If I lived in Victoria and wanted to take a group of kids or young adults camping then this would definitely be a high contender.
All in all we only spent 3 nights here at Lake Lascelles and we thoroughly enjoyed the relaxing time here. It is definitely a place I would visit again next time we are in the area. Thank you Hopetoun.
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| I'm standing at the water's edge to take this photo |
