Lake Wallace; great free camping near Lithgow
If waterfront camping that costs absolutely nothing is your thing, Lake Wallace is a seriously good option for camping. This is a very popular place, but its got more room than you could ever poke a stick at, and if you are coming past and need a place to stop, its well and truly worthy of your company.
We ended up here after stocking up with food in Lithgow, because Katoomba charges you to park and use their grocery stores!
Where is Lake Wallace?
You’ll find this camp site just north of Lithgow, in the Shire of Lithgow.
Amenities at Lake Wallace
There’s toilets here, and apparently a shower. The camping area is huge though, and it’d be a pretty substantial walk to the toilets if you were going to use them. There’s also a decent playground for the kids, and a huge amount of space to run around in. There’s also a dump point, which comes in handy if you’re calling through, and a freshwater tap to fill up with, but its hard to find!
What does it cost?
This is completely and utterly free, which is getting really unusual these days.
How can you support the shire?
We always like to support shires and councils that are RV friendly, and that provide nice rest areas. If you wanted to support the shire, you could spend some money in town.
48 hours maximum stay
There’s a maximum stay of 48 hours here, meaning you can call in for two days and then need to keep moving. I’m not sure if its enforced or not, but you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds!
Dogs and fires
Dogs are permitted here, but fires are not, since May of 2023.
What camping setups does it suit?
You can stay here with anything. We saw people in tents, right the way through to massive caravans, a big bus and truck, camper trailer, hybrid or whatever floats your boat. There’s heaps of flat ground, and you are spoilt for choice when it comes to actually finding a spot.
Do you need to be fully self contained?
Yes, but grey water is fine. As long as you have a toilet with you, you’re laughing. That means there’s no exclusions for tents, camper trailers, vans or anything.
It gets cold
We had one of our coldest days here, with the wind making the chill factor so much worse. It maxxed out at about 7 degrees, with the wind on top during the day making it bitterly chilly!
Would we stay here again?
Yep, and it made for a pretty decent overnighter, after leaving Katoomba and doing our food shopping in Lithgow.
