see also:

• non-commercial camp grounds for tents within 2 hours of Melbourne
  • Newbridge Recreation Reserve camp ground
  • Leanganook camp ground Mount Alexander
• non-commercial camp grounds for tents 2-4 hours from Melbourne
• photography and camping main index page

• a great little well maintained camp ground within 5 minutes walk of a very photogenic large granite boulder outcrop with lots to explore including nice lookout and of course the granite caves you can walk into
• night sky is great for star gazing as light pollution is much less than most other areas close to Melbourne
• 5 min walk to the massive granite boulders and caves;
• nice circuit walks through the box-ironbark forests with lots of granite boulder features including a 3hr 4.5km loop from the end of the Back Road behind the camp ground;
• 380m elevation

Melville Caves campground - north end in infrared

• 2hrs from NW suburbs via Calder Freeway
• bitumen highways
• easily accessible with caravans

• shelter; drop toilets; no potable water;
• camp ground is on a slope but there are a few flattish areas
• good Telstra mobile 4G internet access

• see https://weekendgeology.com/2018/10/02/kooyoora-state-park/
• Mt Kooyora has elevation 479m
• it lies just east of the north-south Avoca fault line which separates:
  • Cambrian sedimentary rock to the west of the fault
  • Ordovician sedimentary rock to the east of the fault
• the Kooyoora granite intrusions formed in the Early Devonian from molten magma chambers, with the ages ranging from 411 to 386 million years old
  • this granite is a Quartz-Monzonite
  • as the magma cooled to form the granite, the granite contracts in size creating near-vertical joints.
  • as overlying rock is eroded, the reduced pressure allows the granite to rise creating horizontal joints
  • groundwater enters the joints and converts feldspars into clay resulting in weakened and rounded edges of the granite boulders
  • further erosion exposes the boulders - often precariously balanced on underlying boulders when the joint materials have eroded
  • a small section east of the campground is Kooyoora granite apalitic phase rock
• adjacent to it on the east is a Wedderburn graniodorite intrusion
• a natural spring exists at the Melville Caves site (currently re-routed to feed the toilet block), with large trees and diverse flora and fauna living at the site as a result of water availability

• Kooyoora State Park has many Indigenous artefacts and was likely to have been an important area for the Dja Dja Wurrung people who live there
• discovered by white people in 1836 by Thomas Mitchell and his party during his Australia Felix expedition
• European settlement of the district began in the 1840s
• gold was discovered north of Melville Caves, near Wedderburn, in 1852, resulting in a gold rush to the region
• bushranger 'Captain Melville' (nee convict Frank McCallum (1822-1857) ) was thought (probably erroneously) to have used the caves as a camp and a vantage point owing to their elevation - he once made off with five billy-cans full of gold dust which were never recovered (thought to be buried at Mt Arapiles)
  • in 1851, Melville created his own gang, The Mount Macedon Gang and held up wayward travellers around the Black Forest.
  • there is no evidence to suggest that Melville actually ever visited Kooyoora area. In contrast Melville’s hideout was believed to have been found in 1880 to the West of Mt. Arapiles in the Dundas Ranges near Mt. Melville
  • see https://makinghistoryoz.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/kooyoora-conflicted-history-final.pdf
• from 1852 to 1883 the region yielded 369 nuggets weighing over 1.5 kg - most found in 1854-1857
  • the Blanche Barkly nugget at Kingower, weighed 49.5 kg
  • two other nuggets weighing over 30 kg were found at Rheola, to the immediate south of the Caves
  • in 1980, the Hand of Faith was found near Wedderburn - the largest nugget found with a metal detector and weighed in at 27.2kg!
• the White Swan Quartz Mine operated in what is now Kooyoora State Park during World War II, producing industrial and ornamental quartz from an open cut mine on pegmatite dykes
• in 1985, the World Orienteering Championships were held here and in that year it was declared a State Park

• Moliagul is 19min away to Sth
• Wedderburn is 22min away to NW
• Newbridge Recreation Reserve camp ground is ~26min away to SE
• Laanecoorie is 32min away to SE
• Waanyarra Camping Grounds is 33min away to SE
• Teddington, Stuart Nill is 45min away to SW
• Maldon is 45min away - Butts Reserve to SE
• Notley camp ground Whipstick north of Bendigo is 51min away
• Lake Wooroonook camp ground is 1hr away to NW
• Leanganook camp ground Mount Alexander is 70min away back near the Calder Freeway
• Echuca and surrounds is 90min away to NE
• The Grampians is 105min away to SW