Camping near Melbourne

Not SW of Melbourne- but a good Park at Coburg- just N of the City.

Most of the reserves on the western side of Melbourne within about an hour of the city (e.g. Point Cooke, You Yangs, Brisbane Ranges/Steiglitz, Long Forest, Organ Pipes, Werribee Gorge, Woodlands) don't permit (car based) camping. The one exception I can think of is O'Brien's Crossing in Lerderderg State Park. Go to Parks Vic web site and download the Visitor Guide for more info.

Otherwise you might be better to set up camp somewhere down the coast, like Queenscliff, Barwon Heads/Ocean Grove, Torquay, Anglesea or Aireys Inlet. Although further from Melbourne the latter two are much nicer. (Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove don't look like they did in SeaChange, and Torquay is grossly overdeveloped and virtually a suburb of Geelong.) If you can avoid the traffic, you could get to Anglesea/Aireys in about 90 mins, maybe less, from Melbourne airport (or less than 1 hour if flying into Avalon). Would be the ideal starting point for your GOR trip the day after picking up you and baby.
Cheers,
Des

Hi, we spent a wonderful long weekend at the Barwon Heads caravan park. Lovely spot right on the beach & walking distance to shops. cafe, pub. That'd be my choice. Watch out for some of the parks down that way - we were quoted $150 per night for a powered site at one Bellarine caravan park - we could have almost bought the piece of dirt for that!! Cheers

If you are only looking for somewhere to camp for one night and are arriving late there is a free camp at Avalon on the Hwy. It,s next to the BP servo just past the Little River turn off and the traffic noise should not be to bad but will wake you early morning, toilets and breaky in servo. Heaps of people use it, so the noise from traffic cant be to bad.

Murray