Campground · Great Otway National Park
Forest camping beside the river, with Lake Elizabeth a short walk away.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Great Otway Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Great Otway National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Great Otway audio tourRecorded for this place
Lake Elizabeth: The Drowned Forest“You're nearing the Lake Elizabeth day visitor area, where the walk leads to a lake filled with drowned tree trunks. Allow about an hour for the two-kilometre return walk, with a steep section and uneven ground.”
Plays as you drive up to Lake Elizabeth Campground in the Parkwolf Great Otway Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Lake Elizabeth Campground is a small, bookable tent campground beneath tall eucalypts beside the Barwon River. Its 20 unpowered sites each accommodate up to six people. It's a good base if you want a night in the forest and don't mind carrying your gear; there are no powered or drive-up pitches.
Use the 15-minute loading bay and carry gear to your site; the separate car park is about a two-minute walk away. The campground has non-flush toilets, shared fireplaces and picnic tables. Water is non-potable, so bring drinking water. Don't use the fireplaces on Total Fire Ban days; gas cookers are allowed. Forrest is a ten-minute drive along Kaanglang Road for supplies. Mobile reception is poor, and the Otways are wet, so download useful information and bring rain gear.
Lake Elizabeth is about a 1 km walk from camp, not beside the tent sites. Heavy rain triggered a landslip in 1952, damming the East Barwon River and turning the forested valley into a lake. Dead tree trunks still stand in the water, giving the basin an unusual look.
Look and listen for Satin Bowerbirds, Superb Fairy-wrens and Eastern Yellow Robins around camp. Platypus are sometimes seen at the lake around dawn and dusk; glowworms may appear along the track after dark. Sightings are a bonus, not a promise. Keep dogs on lead, and watch for snakes on the walk.
Wildlife
204 sightingsKoalaMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
35 sightingsGrey KangarooMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
109 sightingsEchidnaMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
58 sightingsKookaburraMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
97 sightingsSwamp WallabyMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
20 sightingsBrushtail PossumMost seen around 8 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Great Otway. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
EasyLake Elizabeth Loop Walk4.7 km · 1.5 hr · 0.2 km awayDrowned tree trunks turn this lake loop into something eerie.EasyLake Elizabeth Walk2 km · 1 hr · 1 km awayA short river walk to a lake made by a landslide.Parkwolf’s Great Otway ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
