Overnight in the Volcano's Mouth - Family Camping at the Foot of Mount Franklin

Maybe the title makes the night sound more dramatic than it actually was, however Mount Franklin is part of the Hepburn State Park, around a twenty minute drive south of Daylesford and is situated in the mouth of an old volcano. Despite what people may initially think when hearing the name, there is actually no waterfall or any water source at all at Mount Franklin, save for a couple of water tanks at the camp site that were mostly empty.

The entrance to Mount Franklin. It's a very strange and twisty drive in.

  The day started off fairly relaxed as my wife had packed the car fairly high and mostly with kid's toys for our daughter. We set off after lunch and the drive up was fairly relaxed. It was October when we took the trip so the weather was fairly reasonable. It was sunny, however it wasn't too hot, there was a breeze but we weren't too cold.

This was eventually where we would pitch the tent. It would prove to be a grave mistake when morning came.

  We arrived at the camp site, picked a spot to set up camp and took our time setting things up. There were plenty of other campers there, some with small tents, others with caravans and others with large tents like ours. There were a few old couples there, but there were also many families. I generally prefer to camp in a fairly isolated site, but I made the exception for camping with my family not only for my wife's peace of mind but also in the hopes that my daughter might meet and socialize with some children her own age. Unfortunately we were the only family there with a small child.

She still had fun. I'm fairly certain that's some moss in her hand.

  Once we had relaxed for a little while, it was time to put the tent up. My wife had insisted on purchasing a three room, nine person tent and whilst it was spacious when set up, the actual setting up was not fun at all. For a person who is used to camping almost exclusively with a tarp and hammock, putting up a large tent was challenging and frustrating to say the least. I had forgotten how frustrating it is to line up poles and match them up correctly. The weight and size of the tent when packed up was also very big as it took up most of our car's boot. Thankfully for my wife, and my wallet, the experience has completely turned me off buying a hiking tent.

By the end of the trip, I hated this thing

  We had finally gotten the tent set up, after a lot of sweat and profanity, then it was time to set up the bedding. This proved to be more of a challenge than I had originally thought as both my wife and I thought that the other had packed the pump for the air beds. Thankfully I managed to blow up my daughter's bed manually, thanks to years of not smoking and having a decent lung capacity this wasn't too much of an issue.

It blew up without too much hassle

She seemed comfortable in it at least

  The biggest problem was the queen sized air bed that we had purchased for my wife and I. It had been advertised as having a built in air compressor and I had been told in-store when I bought it that the air compressor would plug into my car. This was not the case as the air compressor would only plug into a conventional power point. This proved problematic as I not only went back to Ballarat and purchased another air compressor from Bunnings to attempt to blow it up manually, this was not as simple as it sounded. Eventually one of the campers from across the park saw me struggling, probably hearing my profanity-laced rage, and kindly offered to help by plugging our air bed into his generator. Within seconds the air bed sprang to life and pumped up without an issue. I cannot remember the man's name or the name of his wife but they were incredibly friendly and their help was very much appreciated.

It was quite a big bed once we finally got it pumped up.

  Once the beds were pumped up, my daughter thought that it would be a fun idea to jump on the mattresses. this was fine on the smaller mattress that was less than thirty centimetres off the ground, however this was not such a great idea on the larger mattress. While playing on our mattress, she thought she would jump onto the ground, whilst she wasn't hurt, she was quite upset and even now doesn't like heights. It's certainly a mistake that she will only make once.

We were in the process of taking photos when I managed to snap this gem. Fairly certain that she was in the process of falling at this point.

  Once were all set up, the fire was going and we'd had dinner, we decided to sit and relax in the shade for a while. Surprisingly, we saw a lot of wildlife for an area that saw so much human traffic. Thankfully, the wildlife was not shy about approaching the area, so they must be used to human contact. Whilst there were mostly rabbits and cockatoos that we saw, there were also possums, kangaroos and wallabies on the odd occasion. Anybody who is a good shot with a bow could easily walk twenty metres in any direction and find a rabbit for dinner.

She insisted on playing in the shrubbery.

  The night passed without issue, we relaxed in the shade in our chairs and even roasted some marshmallows over the fire. When I was setting up my chair I got a very welcomed surprise when I found a can of cider in the drink holder, most likely left over from the last time James and I were drinking in my backyard. We made sure that we put all of our food inside our tent to prevent possums from having a little midnight feast and went to bed shortly after.

It'd be a great photo if not for the big, ugly bald bloke spoiling the shot.

  The following morning passed fairly uneventfully as we took our time packing up, let our daughter play around in the open grass patch in the middle of the camp site, had a drink and packed up the car. We also made a point to thank the couple who had helped us out with out bedding the night before as they were very kind and very understanding.

  All in all, Mount Franklin was an amazing trip and we are hoping to make it a family tradition to at least go camping every spring, whether it's at Mount Franklin or elsewhere. I would only really recommend this particular site to families or couples looking for a quiet weekend. Those seeking adventure had best look for a site with walking trails, as the walking trails at Mount Franklin were small and few. Those that they do have are, unfortunately, not worth writing about. Those seeking a weekend away partying in the bush would find themselves out of place here as most of those that we encountered were families and there was not much of a party atmosphere.