Hammonds Road North; Great Ocean Road Free Camping
Want to see the Great Ocean Road, without paying a fortune every night to camp somewhere? Hammonds Road North might just be the place you’ve been dreaming of.
The Great Otways National Park has stolen a chunk of our heart, and we’ll always look back with amazing memories. The thing is though, its incredibly busy, and we learnt to be a bit innovative with our camping, to avoid huge crowds of people, and paying $50 + dollars for an unpowered campsite.
After 3 amazing nights at Jamieson Creek Campground, we headed north, and ended up at Hammonds Road North Campground.
Originally we pulled into Tanners Bend Campground, and after a bit of looking around, we all decided to move on elsewhere. It was a nice enough campground, but none of us really felt at home there, and with a heap of horses, and cars with horse floats parked everywhere it reduced our options considerably.
We’d specifically looked at Tanners due to its proximity to the 4WD tracks that we wanted to do, and nothing else nearby was suitable, or you were paying mega money for the privilege of a patch of grass.
Pulling into Hammonds Road North though, we got a totally different vibe, and were more than happy to set up for another 3 nights.
Where is Hammonds Road North?
You’ll find this camp ground about 20 minutes North West of Aireys Inlet, and roughly half way between Lorne and Anglesea, in the North West Direction. The gravel road in is good condition, with a few small corrugations and pot holes to avoid, but totally suitable for 2WD vehicles.
What does it cost to camp?
Camping here is completely free, which is awesome. Tanners Bend is also free, but this one is much nicer.
Amenities at Hammonds Road North
There’s two drop toilets at Hammonds Road North, which seemed to be in pretty good condition. Each site has its own big, concrete firepit and there are a couple of picnic tables spread around. It’s got just the amenities that you need, and nothing more.
4WD tracks in the area
We were keen to do two 4WD tracks in this area, and that was the primary motivation for staying nearby. One goes from Anglesea to Lorne via the Denham Track, and a number of other tracks, and the other goes from Winchelsea to Anglesea. You can read about them at Anglesea 4WD Tracks.
How does it compare to Hammonds Campground?
Not far south of Hammonds Road North lies another campground, called Hammonds. We actually looked at this a few weeks earlier, and were considering staying there, but it had no sites available. This is a Parks Victoria site that you have to book online, and pay for.
We drove through Hammonds Campground to check it out, and didn’t feel like we were missing out on much.
See the vlog:
Want to see more? Here it is:
Is Hammonds Road North worth camping at?
We really liked this place. The sites are big, the scenery is nice, you can grab firewood from the ground and its close to the 4WD tracks that we wanted to do. I’d have no issues recommending this as a good campground in the Great Otways National Park.
In fact, we bumped into a couple who were surfing the coastline along the Great Ocean road during the day, and driving back to Hammonds Road North to sleep the night, which was awesome to see.
We really liked Hammonds Road North, and would happily be back. Yes, its not quite as nice as Beauchamp Falls, or Aire Crossing, but its still a ripper spot.