Day 18 - We survived!!! Tarra Valley to Lakes Entrance - pics to follow!!

Good morning faithful followers and welcome to yesterdays instalment of our adventure! I am actually blogging on from outside!!!

As you know I am always a day behind with my blogs, I have every intention of writing them in the evening and when I was travelling alone this worked well, but now I am travelling with V we tend to eat and explore and, well, drink so this kind of doesn't happen! So now I sit on the morning of day 19, in Lakes Entrance with the sound of the crashing waves behind us, filling you in on our journey here yesterday,

We begin with our celebrations that we had survived the night in the woods with potential serial killers everywhere, even gleefully using the showers with reckless abandon and packing up our things ready to head out to our next destination.  I did notice that the German ladies car had disappeared and that the man next door (you remember, the one with the banjo and the chainsaw) was hastily packing things into his ancient van, but we knew we had survived the night so nothing else mattered.  We even bid an awkward farewell to the owner on our way our, to be met with an knowing smile and a nod and the words 'do come back....'

Like I have said before this part of the country is fairly unknown to me so we relied on the map (yes the map, no sat nag, I won that battle) and meandered back through the stunning valley and picked up the Gippsland Highway which wold take us right to our next destination, via a few random pit stops on the way.

The highway was a pleasant one, meandering through towns and villages, farmland and normal rural life in Australia, and our first little detour was to a sleepy little seaside town called Seaspray.  It had lost none of its 1970's charm (as the guide book had predicted) and was the perfect spot to admire our first view of the perfectly named (as always) 90 mile beach.  WOW.  What a beach, and, if its name was correct, it would continue for 90 miles.  The sand was golden, the sea blue, the waves rolling and the air was clear, the sun even made an appearance.  It was stunning and we just stood and took it all in, marvelling that we were the only ones there (as on every beach I think I have ever found on my travels).

We then decided to follow what looked like the coast road for a few miles, with the ocean on the right and lakes on the left, through the Gippsland Lakes NP.  It was a nice drive but unfortunately the ocean was hidden behind the scrubland that boarded it, small gaps and trails giving us tantalising glimpses of the blue beyond.  We stopped at the main one, Golden Beach and were again treated to an amazing stretch of this 90 mile coastline with only us to enjoy it.  A spot of picnic lunch followed, actually outside, in the sunshine, with the sea in front of us!! Finally after all these days and nights we could enjoy the van as nature intended!!

We then headed inland picking up the pretty highway once again and drove through several small towns such as Sale, Stratford and Bairnsdale before finding Nemo (see the pics!!!!!) and the last stretch to Lakes Entrance.

A convenient lookout (you can't miss is, see the photo to come) gave us a glimpse of what we were about to drive into and it was stunning.  A few more minutes down the road and another viewpoint gave us an even better picture of Lakes Entrance, which is, as always, exactly what it says - an entrance from the ocean to the lakes.  It was man made in the 1880's so that the fisherman could have better access to the lake and has been maintained ever since, and what it has formed are sandbanks and 'arms' that are a thriving town and very very pretty holiday destination for messing around on the water.  Which is exactly what we did!!

As we were driving around the lovely little town getting our bearings, we could see lots and lots of small hire boats on one of the lakes,  and instantly V said 'lets do it'.  Now some of you may know that I am not too keen on water (remember the near death canoe incident in the Ardeche??) and although this wasn't exactly Cape Fear I was still a little scared!!! The boat man (who happened to be from Southend, Essex in his previous life) gave us the run down on keeping the green posts to the left (or was it the right) and the red posts to the right (or was it the left) and soon we were heading off in the small chuggy boat equivalent of Bob our mini.  Despite my fears that we would get shipwrecked in the middle of this stunning calm lake and perish, we had a wonderful hour chugging around and soaking up the sun, not really remembering what way round which post we should be going but staying in the middle and hoping for the best, V doing a fab impression of James Bond in a speedboat (obviouslly in a small chug boat at 5 knots) and all was well when we docked back and bid farewell, heading off to find our home for the night.

The town was lovely, boats everywhere, real surfy seaside feel and our campsite at Eastern Beach again just happened to be just that, on eastern beach.  Stunning.  And again deserted.  We had our first beach sunset since Norlunga back in Adelaide, played chicken with the waves rolling onto the beach before heading back to M&M for tea.  The obligatory BBQ was done, and eaten (eventually) outside in the evening calm, along with more than a few beers, a bit of wifi drama (him not me) and then a rip roaring snoring slumber for V and an eventually sleep for me (plenty or rib digging and tutting went on I can tell you!!).

And now it is real time.  Almost 9am on day 19 of our adventure, sitting in the morning haze outside M&M listening to the waves crashing over the way and ready to embark on the next leg, to take us to our second to last stop before hitting the final destination.  But I can think about that now, its too much like we're almost done and there is a lot more to see before that happens!!

So until I can get the Phillip Island post done and get wifi to cope with all the photos that need uploading it is, as ever, TTFN xxxxx