McLennans Punt Campground; amazing camping in Victoria
After crossing into Victoria from South Australia, we were looking for places to camp over the Australia day long weekend, and wanted to lock something in so we had somewhere to stay. McLennans Punt Campground popped up as an option for one night, and looked absolutely fantastic, so we booked it in.
After spending a great night at Fort O’hare in Dartmoor, we were keen to do some more great camping in Victoria, and this spot ended up being nothing short of spectacular.
Where is McLennans Punt?
You’ll find this spot on the northern banks of the Glenelg River, not far from the South Australia and Victoria Border. It’s roughly 30 minutes to Dartmoor, and 26 minutes to Nelson.
Amenities at McLennans Punt
There’s a male and female drop toilet at McLennans Punt, along with a water tank that has ‘untreated rainwater’, and a fire pit in each site. I’ll be honest and say the drop toilets smelt reasonably bad, but we haven’t been in Victoria long enough to know if that’s normal or not!
What does it cost to camp?
Camping here is $15.70 per night, which we thought was pretty reasonable. We’d pay more than that in WA for sure, and this is a fantastic, quiet spot.
What’s the camp site like?
We quickly fell in love with this spot. It’s quiet, metres away from the river, has great bird life and is in a stunning part of the world. We saw a heap of blue wrens, some wallabies, Gang Gang Cockatoos and other water birds that we aren’t familiar with.
There are only three sites, and they are very close together, and relatively narrow. This is great in terms of making the camp site quiet and private from outside guests, but you are very close to whoever you camp with. If you got all 3 sites with friends and family it would be epic.
We got our Isuzu Dmax and Reconn R2 into site number 1 without any issues, but a full size van would be pushing the friendship. Site number 3 is the biggest, with the most amount of solar potential, but they are all really good.
You can walk about 20 metres onto a small jetty and platform to fish, swim and kayak off. There’s a number of boats that come past, along with those kayaking and canoeing, but its extremely quiet, and very peaceful.
We all swam (actually Cooper fell in off the Jetty!) towards the end of January and there was plenty of water, but the mud at the bottom of the ladder was pretty feral. We just opted to climb down and jump across, and to avoid touching it!
Overall, it’s a ripper spot that we’d highly recommend.
Do you need a 4WD?
The road in is good condition gravel, with a couple of pot holes to avoid. Other than that, its easy, quick and simple to get in and you absolutely don’t need a 4WD. We saw a couple of 2WD vehicles there who clearly had no issues driving around.
Would we visit again?
We’d go back to McLennans Punt again for sure. It’s a magic, cheap spot with great views and our kids loved playing around the camp for the day. This spot would give a lot of camp sites in WA a run for its money; its absolutely fantastic.
