The Lake Tyers Camp Park has a most intriguing history. The Methodist Church and the Uniting Church in Australia have operated the site as a camp park for over 47 years. The Methodist Church purchased the site in 1957 from Ethel Isobel Cross of Lakes Entrance, and Noel Alexander Hamilton Cross, a farmer also from Lakes Entrance.
The history of the ownership of the park can be traced back to 1898 when Lorn Edith Campbell Morrison originally purchased the area as Crown Land from the Colony of Victoria.
As the history reveals there have been associations that have continued throughout the life of the park. We see how families have played a major role from the parks early development through to the present time. Names like Bulmer, Bray, Cross, Lyons, Risstrom, Castles, Terrill, Hales, Bennett, Docking, Gronow, Gillard, Ulph, Aldrich, Wood and Alcorn have been important in making the camp park as many can remember it in years gone by, and as it is today.
The park commenced with primitive buildings and amenities when Charles Cross operated the site as a holiday park. When the Methodist Church commenced the popular Easter Camps, and also Methodist Circuit Camps and ministers’ retreats during the year. There were no modern items such as power, water, sewerage, comfortable beds, and a kitchen that a cook could be proud of.
Reverend Arthur Lyons, known as “Pop Lyons”, set about establishing a camp somewhere in Gippsland that could be used to foster ministers, missionaries, lay preachers and people who would carry on the church of the future. The Lake Tyers site was ideal for this vision Rev. Arthur Lyons had.
During much of the history of the Lake Tyers Camp Park, the lack of funds have hindered the development of the site. However, looking back, this created a history that has helped make the story more of a challenge than if everything simply arrived. People worked together for every little improvement to create the park situated along the most beautiful and peaceful par of the Ninety Mile Beach.
In recent years there has been an increase in the camp’s revenue and this has resulted in a rebuilding program to replace the original buildings that many people associate with Lake Tyers Camp Park. Over the years, power, water and now sewerage have been connected, and this has allowed the park to compete with other parks within the Lakes Entrance region, as a caravan park and providing for the public so they can enjoy what the park and the area has to offer.
Church and school camps during the year allow a wide range of people the opportunity to benefit from the effort that went into creating the park, from what was once almost a vacant block of land to the well serviced haven it is today.