How to use for finding park locations in Australia
Australian Caravan Park Reports

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Google Maps Australia provides a quick and very easy way to pin-point the place where you intend to stay.
You can use it to view the park or camping ground before leaving home.

Click the Google Maps Australia logo at the top of this page which will open a separate Google Maps page.

On that page (shown below), beside the same logo, you will find a search bar followed by the Search Maps button.
Enter the caravan park (or camping area) name, the suburb/town and the state, and press Search Maps.

 

If an exact match is found, a page will appear pin-pointing the caravan park. 
I had typed "Golden River Holiday Resort Mildura Vic".

 

If a close match is found, rather than an exact match, a page will appear of the town/suburb with a listing on the left of possible matches. 
I had typed "Golden River Caravan Park Mildura Vic".

 

The images above are Satellite views. 
To switch to/from Map and Satellite views, use the buttons on the top right of the view screen. 
The following image is the same page but in Map view.

 

The Terrain View button is handy to show what the topography of hilly areas is like. 
The following view is of the Katoomba NSW area.

 

Back to Mildura, Satellite View. When a likely match is found (not an exact one), click on the link on the left and the place is 
pin-pointed on the map with some details.
While we're here, you can see on the page that roads and place names are shown. 
You can turn these on/off by placing your mouse over the Satellite button and a box called "Show labels" appears underneath with a checkbox. 
Click this checkbox to remove/show the roads and place names - the screen after the one below has the "Show labels" box visible.

 

When you move the mouse pointer over the map, the pointer changes to an 'open hand'. 
When you move it over one of the map buttons on the top right, it changes to a 'pointing hand' (the same pointer is used whenever 
you hover over any hyperlink). If you click the left mouse button over a map, the 'open hand' changes to a 'grasping hand' and 
remains as a 'grasping hand' as long as the left mouse button remains pressed. 
With the 'gasping hand' showing, moving the mouse will drag the map around. This will allow you to center the view.
If you double-click over the map, two things happen: the view centers over that area where you double-clicked; and the view zooms 
in one level. Repeating the double-click centers again and zooms in another level. 
Moving the map can also be done by the control on the top left of the view screen, and zooming in and out can be done by the 
slide-bar on the top left of the view screen, under the map movement control (and by the mouse's scroll wheel if you have one). 
In the next view, I had double-clicked twice on the placemark I wanted from the screen above, so it centered and zoomed in two levels.

 

See that little man symbol in the top left of the view screen, above the zoom slide control? That's Google's Street View. 
In this view I have "grabbed" him (by keeping the left mouse button pressed, once the pointer is over him) and have dragged him 
over to the street I want to see (in this case outside the caravan park). 
When you first "grab" him and move him onto the map, all the streets that have Street View available (most streets in Australia) 
have a blue outline marked around them. 
The following screen-shot shows after I have dragged him to where I want him, but before I have have released the left mouse button. 
A little box appears showing the Street View that will be shown plus the address.

 

Once you have dragged your little man to where you want him and then released the left mouse button, then the next screen that 
appears is the Street View.

 

Rotating and zooming in, using the controls in the top left, can get you facing the caravan park entrance, as below.

 

If you move the mouse poiner over the Street View, a line will appear with the Street name and a direction arrow(s). 
Clicking on these direction arrows takes you to the next Street View photo in that direction.

 

This view is after I had clicked the left hand direction arrow, which in that case moved to the next Street View photo (south along 
Ranfurly Way) which was taken directly outside the park entrance. 
I then held down the left mouse button and scrolled the view to look directly down the driveway. 
Street View allows you to see what the entry to the park is like, in case it's hard to negotiate into the park. 
To exit Street View, just click on the small X in the top right corner of the view screen and the Google Map view you last used comes back.

 

Here we are back at the Google Maps view before we went to Street View.

 

Here I have zoomed right in as far as Google Maps will allow. 
When I tried to zoom in closer, the screen gave a warning message that essentially said I'd reached maximum zoom, so I just 
zoomed back out to this maximum allowable view (see the screen shot after the screen below to see this warning). 
This view gives a good indication of the park's layout and its location.

 

Below is the warning screen telling you that you've tried to zoom too close. 
Just back up one zoom level to get the maximum allowable, as above.

 

Below is a Google Earth (not Google Maps) screen shot of the same caravan park. 
Google Earth allows you to zoom in much closer. I have selected to show the Street View placemarks along the street (the little 
camera icons). You can click on any of these placemarks to see that Street View. 
Moving the mouse pointer over any of the Street View placemarks shows the exact or approximate street address of the building 
in front of that placemark. 
I won't go into the use of Google Earth here as you need to download and install Goggle Earth to use it (it's free) but later versions 
of Google Earth look slightly different and have different options than previous version.

 

You can search Google Maps for more than one caravan park. In the search bar, I had typed "caravan parks tasmania" and the 
page that came up showed some caravan parks but it also had two hyperlinks in the left pane called 
"Self-Catering Holiday Accommodation, Caravan Parks And Camping Grounds". 
I clicked on "Caravan Parks And Camping Grounds" and the following screen came up. 
Down the left hand side I could click more screens to see more caravan parks and camping grounds around Tasmania.


Google Maps or Google Earth, and Street View, can be a great tool to help you plan your trip. 
I use Google Earth to plan our holidays and places to stay. 
I also use Google Earth after my trips to record my trip. Placemarks identify important places in the trip and I usually attach at 
least one photo to each placemark, so it's like an electronic diary of our holidays. 
You can see some of our holidays using Google Earth by visting my Caravanning Links page.


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Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View are trademarks and copyright of Google and using their products you're bound by their Terms and Conditions found on their sites.
The screen shots above are purely to explain how to use their products to make caravanning and camping more fun.
The screen shots have not been doctored in any way and appear as I used the products as explained above.