Traveling in a motorhome in the state of Victoria

A spacious lighting surrounded by eucalyptus trees. An emu struts across the entrance road to the first campground on our Victoria trip: Lakeside Tourist Park, site 129, in the Grampians National Park is reached after 254 kilometers from Melbourne. And then the welcoming committee lands: sulphur-crested cockatoos that greet every newcomer. “These guys have learned,” explains our neighbor and comes over with a beer. “If you’re new to the campsite, you’re welcome to get something from the pantry. Anyone who returns to their seat from an excursion will no longer be noticed. Good day! I’m Peter.” He comes from the developed north. “It’s too hot for me in Queensland in the summer.” I’m always in Victoria and South Australia for three or four months. I can find a job anytime and anywhere when I need one.”

“Oh God, how stuffy! With the motorhome?” That was the first reaction from friends to the upcoming travel plan. Of course they don’t know a guy like Peter. And when she got the answer “Australia” to the question “Where are we going?”, the tide turned: “Wow! Super! Toll! A motorhome is exactly the right thing!” Exactly! After all, it’s not about a motorhome holiday where you spend 14 days at a campsite, but rather a round trip. Canada, the southwest of the USA or Scandinavia would probably also have ended up in the “Wow” category. This type of travel has to do with space and infrastructure: Where there are long distances and few accommodations, restaurants and shopping opportunities, the motorhome becomes the perfect rolling utility facility for exploring more beautiful landscapes, the home on four wheels, with a kitchenette, mini shower and toilet and a well-proportioned bed measuring 1.90 by 1.70 meters.

Electricity and water cables are connected, the sewage pipe has been laid, the camping table and chairs are on the lawn. Since it’s approaching 6 p.m., the steaks are being cut and the Shiraz is being opened. Outside, of course, in shorts and slippers – watching a koala munching its leaves high up in the eucalyptus tree. But before the first dinner under the Australian sky, others are hungry too. Within a few minutes, the vast expanse of lighting right under our noses had filled with three to four dozen kangaroos. Most of them graze peacefully, a few young animals box, and a small one emerges from its mother’s pouch and is surprisingly large. It quickly reaches half of the mother.

If you spend the night at the Lakeside Tourist Park, you don’t need to go hunting. There the roos, as the Australians say to their kangaroos, quickly come to the motorhome: hungry and curious. A few ostriches also appear, rabbits hop around, ducks waddle in from nearby Fyans Creek. You can get close to the animals at ten to 15 meters and take photos in peace. The kangaroos watch people closely, but they don’t fly.

Anyone who stays in a hotel or motel in the Grampians will not be able to see this nightly spectacle, as only camping guests can access this wonderful clearing. Elsewhere in Victoria and in other states too Australian There are often only campsites within the national park. Hotels and motels are mostly located outside.

We want to wink at the legendary Great Ocean Road with the world-famous Twelve Apostles: Peter and wish you a safe journey, which, however, begins with a surprise. It rattles and rattles in the first few meters, as if everything is about to break. We actually admitted wrong! Because every centimeter of the Mercedes Euro Tourer’s 8.1 square meters of living space has been transplanted. And anyone who doesn’t admit it meticulously will be punished with a concert of clutter.

It’s crazy what fits into the cupboard, drawers and compartments. Here the essentials in a small space, there the vastness of the ocean and the 243 kilometer long panoramic road from Portfairy in the west to Torquay in the east: Highway 100, as the Great Ocean Road is officially called, winds its way high above the cliffs, past bizarre places Rock formations standing in the sea as if they were sculptures. Of the eleven apostles, i.e. boulders, there are still eight left, and erosion is already eating away at these too. “In 1990, the London Arch connection to the mainland collapsed into the sea without warning,” a national park ranger explains to tourists from Japan. “When it broke, there were vacationers on the rock bridge.” A murmur goes through the group. “But miraculously they were able to escape to the bridge pillar in the sea until a helicopter brought them to safety.” The ranger has to endure a staccato of cell phone and tablet recordings as if he had been the hero of London Arch. If you want to see the oldest lighthouse on the continent, take the dead-end road to the largest Cape Otway. A good place to have a picnic: take out the table, open the fridge, set up. The motorhome makes it possible.

Motorhomes and caravans have been special since Corona in vogue – for stationary holidays and in Australia for extended tours. With an average of around 30,000 new motorhome registrations per year, Australia is at the top of the global rankings, but far behind Germany with a good 65,000 new vehicles. We count 23 vehicles on the ferry from Queenscliff via Port Phillip Bay to Sorrento. Five of them are RVs.

Via Phillip Island – the island with the penguin parade every evening – we continue to Wilsons Promontory National Park. Similar to the Grampians, one of those brand 1-B national parks: you’ve heard of it, it must be beautiful. In truth, the park is amazing! At the southernmost point of the Australian mainland it becomes spherical and reddish: This is how the boulders appear, huge eroded granite rocks. They surround wonderful beaches, countless hiking trails lead across the peninsula, but we don’t like the campsite this time: it resembles a sober parking lot.

There is a parking space in nature a few kilometers outside in Walkerville. This time there are red and blue pennant parakeets as the welcoming squadron, and the motorhome is parked exactly 18 wooden steps above a spacious beach with surf that is perfect for an adventure in the waves. The wood for the evening fire has already been provided, and at night you can hear the rustling when the windows are open. But now we have a glass of Sparkling, ice cold, from the fridge. The Aussies call their sparkling wine sparkling, also sparkling. And the waves and the vastness of the sea behind them are just as sparkling. 8.1 square meters of confinement are just 8.1 square meters that make great freedom possible.

Further information at visitmelbourne.com/practical-information/about-victoria.