Camperdown

Camperdown is a rural township on the Western District volcanic plains of Victoria. It is on the Princes Highway, 40 km west of Colac and 165 km south-west of Melbourne.

Camperdown is famed for its early European settlers, the Manifold brothers. In 1838 John and Peter Manifold, who had brought sheep to the Geelong district from Tasmania two years before, explored westwards. They found the freshwater Lake Purrumbete (most lakes on the plain are salt or brackish), and good volcanic-soil grazing land in the vicinity of Mt Leura, a large scoria hill 1 km east of Camperdown.