We’ve travelled to Melbourne many times over the past seven or so years since we’ve had family living there, and over that time we’ve travelled with the caravan, but left it way out of the city and just driven in and stayed with the family.

This visit however we decided to bite the bullet and take the caravan into Melbourne, to stay at the Big4 Melbourne Holiday Park in the suburb of Coburg. So with lots of research behind us and googling for help with which was the best route to tow a caravan into Melbourne, through gritted teeth and white knuckles (on my part) we headed in.

So to others deciding whether it’s possible here’s the tips that got us through. If you’re approaching Melbourne from the west we took the M80 highway / Western Ring Road, take the exit onto the Calder Freeway / M79 towards the city, then exit to State Route 40/Bell Street. Here it where it starts getting hairy with the road quite narrow, and I found myself as the passenger, leaning closer to the driver’s side, just in case we side swipe a building!

Thankfully Bell Street soon widens and we stay on this road until we turn left onto Elizabeth Street where the caravan park is. There’s one last hurdle to jump with Elizabeth street being one with a school, a large Woolworths supermarket and it’s also a bus route, all of which means you have to duck and weave your way up this road until finally arriving at the park. PHEW!

The Big4 Melbourne park is a peaceful haven from the moment you enter, with the staff being really helpful when we arrived and getting us onto a site which we at first thought was a little tight. Once we were settled in, we didn’t have a need for the car again, with public transport options close by and easy to navigate.

A little over a kilometre to the east or west of the caravan park you can walk to a tram or even jump on a bus to get you to the tram routes. At the time of writing, public transport is free in Melbourne and until the end of the year it will remain at half price. Another bonus!

When we would return to the park after dark, we would use a ride share service such as Didi or Uber and didn’t have to pay more than $25 for any trip.

The park has fantastic facilities; I’ve never seen a better ablution block (and not just in caravan parks). There’s a big, functional camp kitchen, beautiful pool, outdoor cinema and more, not much of which we used because the city and vibrant suburbs of Melbourne were so close and easy to explore.

We’ll be back to Melbourne in the caravan for sure, having survived the journey once, and now with the knowledge of how easy it is to access public transport from the park, it will be a much more relaxed and easy trip.

Try it for yourself!

Glenys