CAMP MANYUNG HISTORY
Camp Manyung is one of the oldest campsites in Victoria. It has been used for camps since the late 1920’s.
During the 1920’s the YMCA held tent camps on this land. At this time it was owned by a man named Thomas Baker. The same man that started the Australian branch of Kodak (the film company).
The original name of the property was Manyung Estate; it was then called Norman Lodge before it became Camp Manyung. The word ‘Manyung’ was the local Aboriginal name for the white flowering tea-tree which is found on the eastern side of the property.
In the early 1930’s a man named Ivor Burge (who had just returned from America) came up with the idea of a permanent camp like the ones he had seen in America. He asked an architect to plan the camp layout and design the bunkhouses. It was decided that the camp would be built by volunteers because the YMCA did not have the money to pay for it.
100 pound was donated by Mrs Baker and her sister and Marion Shaw for the materials to build the original five bunkhouses (now the old cabins 1 – 5). The concrete bricks and tiles were made by had onsite. Every month people from all over came together to work on the camp.
The outdoor chapel was built in the late 1930’s in memory of Charles Crosby. Mr Crosby served the YMCA for 30 years as its President.
By the late 1930’s over 33,000 trees and shrubs had been planted on what was once a barren wheat field.
Impressed by the work being done, Mrs Baker gave the camp area and the wood paddock (now the eastern boundary) to the YMCA. Later, the oval was purchased from the estate. All this occurred before 1940.
The managers house (now the staff house) was built in the mid 1930’s for Ivor Burge and his family to live in.
During World War 2 the camp was used for a period as a recovery centre for American troops wounded in the Pacific.
In 1981, the Victorian State Government purchased the camp. The Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation operated it until 1997 when the management was handed back to the YMCA. The YMCA currently has a lease to manage the campsite until 2020.