Camping at Boar Gully in the Brisbane Ranges National Park
Boar Gully is a great bush campground in the northern part of the Brisbane Ranges National Park. It’s just a one hour drive from Melbourne, sitting between Geelong and Ballarat. You’ll feel as though you’re days away from city.
The campground is spread out with seven sites. The first six are for tents only where you can almost park next to your campsite, but not quite, with the seventh site being designated for camper trailers.
Each campsite has a lot of space and there’s dense patches of bush that creates some privacy among each group.
There’s a dam that you can go fishing in and a couple of walking trails that go right near the campground. If you’re willing to drive, not too far away is are few decent hiking trails, the Anakie Gorge Walk, which then extends to the Ted Errey Nature Loop are decent, then the South Steiglitz Loop isn’t bad, but not family friendly or for those that need a trail to follow.
Boar Gully is one of just two drive-in campgrounds in the Brisbane Ranges, Fridays Campground being the other. Boar Gully is our preferred place to go camping in the national park as it feels more remote and spread out. Fridays is a nice campground, although each site is right next to each other, which might suit families with small kids and multiple groups, where-as we prefer the space and layout at Boar Gully.
Campground Facilities
There are well maintained drop toilets available and water tank with a tap for cleaning up, although it’s not filtered, so you’ll need to remember to bring plenty of your own drinking water.
Picnic tables and Fire pits are throughout the campground and it’s a good idea to bring your own fire wood as there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount around.
In total, there are 7 campsites, with 1-6 being for tents where you can park very close, but not right on your campsite. Site 7 is a designed camper trailer site, if you find that it’s already booked, then try Fridays as sites 1 & 2 there, are for camper trailers.
You’ll need to book your campsite here on the Park Vic website where you can of course, also check for future availability.
Getting to Boar Gully Campground
Boar Gully is about a one hour drive west of Melbourne in the northern part of the Brisbane Ranges. It’s only about 45 minutes from Ballarat but about 55 minutes from Geelong, as it sits right up in the top part of the national park.
Usually, when heading to the Brisbane Ranges from Melbourne, you’d head towards Geelong, but for Boar Gully Campground, it’s normally best to take the road to Ballarat and turn off before Melton at Troups Road North, then keep heading west.
If you’re coming from Geelong, head to Anakie, follow the road past the Fairy Park and just keep on going until you reach Brisbane Ranges Road, turn right and drive for another 2-3 kms until you see Camp Track Road. Boar Gully Campground is at the end of Camp Track Road.
From Ballarat, head to the east on the Western Freeway until you hit the Geelong-Ballan Road, turn right and drive south until you see Brisbane Ranges Road on your left. Head down Brisbane Ranges Road for 2-3 kms until you get to Camp Track Road, turn into it and Boar Gully Campground is down the end.
Other places to go camping near Boar Gully
The only other place that you can drive into and go camping in the Brisbane Ranges is Friday’s Campground, which is about 15-20 minute to the south of Boar Gully.
Friday’s is a nice place with a lot of shade from large trees, decent facilities and a couple of walking trails that go past the campground, but it’s a lot different to Boar Gully. Instead of having seperate campsites tucked between shrubs, which offers a little bit more privacy, Fridays is one large campground that’s in an oval shape, split into individual campsites, everyone more-or-less camps next to each other.
