Apollo campervan hire Melbourne: get out cleanly, camp well

The Apollo Melbourne depot is usually part of the airport-side industrial sprawl rather than the postcard bit of Melbourne. That is a good thing. You are closer to the Tullamarine Freeway, Western Ring Road and Hume than you are to hook turns, tram tracks and delivery vans with opinions.

Allow at least 60–90 minutes for pickup, more if it is school holidays or everyone has decided to begin their Big Lap on the same Tuesday. Before you leave, do the unglamorous walk-around: tyre condition, windscreen chips, gas bottle, water hose, power lead, toilet cassette, vehicle height and whether the awning actually winds back in.

• Do: load groceries after pickup at a suburban shopping centre with open-air parking.
• Do: ask about toll-road handling for CityLink and EastLink before you roll.
• Do not: plan to drive straight to Lorne, Wilsons Prom or the Grampians in the dark on day one. Kangaroos do not read your itinerary.

Melbourne is manageable in a camper if you treat it like a small truck, not a hire car. Most 2-berth and 4-berth motorhomes sit around 2.7–3.4 m high; your exact height sticker matters more than your confidence. Underground car parks, low canopies and tight bottle-o drive-throughs are where holidays go to become paperwork.

If you have booked Apollo motorhome hire Melbourne and you are leaving from the airport side, your easiest exits are west to Geelong and the Great Ocean Road, north to Bendigo and the Murray, or east via the Ring Road/EastLink toward Gippsland. Peak traffic can add 45 minutes to a short hop, especially Friday afternoons when half the city points a caravan at the coast.

• West: M80 then M1 to Geelong; good first fuel and supermarket options.
• North: M80 to Calder or Hume; road-train awareness starts once you leave the suburbs.
• East/south-east: EastLink/Monash can be tolled and busy; avoid 7–9 am if you can.

Your first camp should be boring in the best way: level site, toilets, water, easy dinner and no need to reverse beside a gum tree after dark. A powered site around greater Melbourne or a booked Parks Victoria-style campground can cost anything from roughly $20 for basic bush camping to $45–$80 for a powered holiday-park site near the coast or city fringe.

Free camping near Melbourne is not a magic right. Many beach car parks and suburban reserves ban overnight stays, and councils do issue fines. In Victoria, national parks and state parks generally require you to camp only in designated areas, book where required, keep pets out of most national parks and use fire pits only when permitted. Total Fire Ban days are not suggestions.

• Do: book your first night before pickup, especially December to Easter.
• Do: arrive with 10–20 litres of drinking water if using a basic campground.
• Do not: sleep in a scenic foreshore car park because another van is doing it. They may also be wrong.

Melbourne has the supplies; the trick is not leaving them behind. Empty the toilet cassette before you need to, top potable water whenever it is easy, and sort gas early if your fridge, hot water or cooktop depends on it. Many public dump points are free, but some sit inside showgrounds or caravan parks where access rules change.

Use a current dump-point app or council listing on the day, because gates, maintenance and event closures happen. For water, holiday parks are simplest; RV-friendly towns such as Ballarat, Bendigo, Maryborough, Beaufort and Echuca often have better access than inner suburbs. LPG bottle swaps are common at servos and hardware stores, while old-school autogas bowsers are becoming less reliable each year.

• Good habit: dump when the cassette is half to two-thirds full, not when it is sloshing mutiny.
• Fuel rule: in western Victoria and the High Country, refill by half-tank; wind and hills can lift consumption from about 11 L/100 km to 15 L/100 km.
• Water rule: never assume picnic-area taps are potable unless signed.

Melbourne is a strong launch city because the loops are properly different. In 250 km you can be under mountain ash, beside Southern Ocean swell, in goldfields towns with broad streets built for bullock teams, or parked near a Murray River pub listening to corellas argue like grey nomads at a dump point.

Pick the loop that matches your vehicle and season. Two-wheel-drive campervans are fine for sealed-road touring, but not for muddy High Country tracks, beach access or signed 4WD-only roads. In summer, inland days over 38°C are normal; in winter, alpine roads can carry snow and chains may be required for certain routes and resorts.

• Coast plus ranges: Great Ocean Road, Port Fairy, Halls Gap and Ballarat in 5–7 days.
• Forest and lakes: Yarra Valley, Walhalla, Gippsland Lakes and Phillip Island in 6–8 days.
• Goldfields and Murray: Bendigo, Echuca, the silo-art edge and Daylesford in 5–7 days.