Calembeen Park is located just a short walk or drive west of the Creswick town centre. It boasts two beautiful lakes, which are home to plentiful birdlife and colourful waterlilies. It’s a lovely spot to relax, walk, cycle, fish, row, picnic, and swim.

Chinese miners mined here for shallow alluvial gold during the 1850s and 1860s, and the area developed into a semi-permanent Chinese settlement. By the early 1900s the mine workings had been abandoned, and in 1911 they were deemed as a suitable place to establish a swimming hole. Known by locals over the decades since as ‘the pool’, tyre magnate Sir Frank Beaurepaire once commented that Calembeen was Victoria’s finest inland swimming basin. It hosted many swimming carnivals and attracted hundreds of visitors to the area. The restoration of the historic dive tower in recent years has seen renewed interest in the reserve as a swimming facility.

Only one of the lakes in Calembeen Park is suitable for swimming and there are sudden, steep drops in depth. Exercise caution and always supervise children closely. There is a toddlers’ pool at the site, which is open during the summer months.