Continuing Travels to Melbourne

Monday 23rd February.
Woke up to free pancakes. Fluffy and nice. We felt we should move to a cheaper campsite but found that the first site we tried was charging $40. Found a much more reasonably priced one on the cliff top. Decided to do the boardwalk along the side of the lake, passing by oyster farms on the way. Very satisfying views with lots of little soldier crabs. ...Lin here... when Brent says lots of little soldier crabs he makes it sound really sweet. In fact as we were walking over the beach to the board walk I suddenly realised that the area surrounding us was alive with these tiny crabs... I didnt half run to that boardwalk I can tell you! Creepy!! Back to Brent's account...Went back to campsite and got chatting to a young couple who had spent a lot of time in Asia and gave us some good tips – especially to carry American dollars. Got slightly pissed and played Quiddler. Linda then invited us all to share the rest of the night with some Ozzie lads....Lin here...just to clarify...I was well away and got chatting to the lads, who were the other side of the fence. We ended up having a good old natter and a laugh...although I have to admit ...I don't remember much about it!!

Tuesday 24th February
Lin here: well having just about recovered from my funny tummy today the drinkig on what was still clearly and iffy tum lead to terrrible heartburn. Oh dear and I bought it on myself. Anyway we moved on, saying goodbye to our new friends and moved on to Eden, staying at a campsite called The Garden of Eden! The site wasn't exactly paradise, but was nice enough and we got a good night's sleep.

Wednesday 25th February
This morning we enjoyed exploring Eden and it's wonderful Killer WhaLe museum. It was fascinating to see the bones of Tom, one of the killer orca whales that worked alongside the whalers to catch other whales which were then shared between man and whale... sounds far fetched but apparently the killers were only interested in eating the tongue and the lips of the other whales, so the townsfolk had the rest! The museum was full of whale remains and stories of how men and whale worked together. Outside the museum there was a set of mosaic panels depicting the history of the whaling community. Good photo opportunity.

We moved on to Mallocoota from Eden and were surprised to see quite a few folk free camping on the headland. We had a look roun quite a few sites, but they were all very busy and tightly packed. We've realised by now how important fishing is all along the coast here. It's the main attraction for holiday makers and everywhere we've been there are special sinks for cleaning fish once caught..these are on sea fronts and in all the campsites. Here in Mallocoota there were loads of fishing boats and fresh fish available everywhere...although the choice today was quite limited. Anyway we ended up camping on a site with more space a short way out of town. Before dinner we did a quite wonderful walk from the site, along the road to the path, which meandered through bush country around the headland to a wonderful beach, which for most of the time we had to ourselves. It was alovely evening and quite magical.

Thursday 26th February
Moved onto Lakes Entrance. Tried a campsite out of town but wanted to be a bit closer to civilisation. Loads of campsites but the first one we tried was tighly crowded so we moved on to one nearer front. By now we are getting used to the Oz Walk in and out vans... we think they are quite funny: you get a static caravan of normal size attached to a cabin, where you get sofas, TV etc. Seems weird to us and we can't work out why you'd want this combination.. in England you'd either rather be moving with your van, or you'd go for a larger static caravan ie a mobile home or a cabin. Still the system here is very popular and our neighbours had planted up in front of their walk in/out and taken their 2 large dogs along!! (fortunately they were very quiet!). We enjoyed looking around Lakes Entrance and found a video store with good internet where we caught up on skype before bed.

Friday 27th February
Spent this morning walking along the splendid esplanade here. We loved the figures carved out of Yew trees which represented the town's history and were very beautiful...more photos if we ever work out how to upload them!! We walked across the bridge to the wonderful 90 mile beach. All around the town we saw school children of all ages litter picking. They were all in smart uniforms with huge sun hats and really doing a good job. We later found out it was Keep Australia Clean Day. On the beach we saw an ambulance get stuck in the sand and rushed to help along with several others..Turned out they were on a training exercise, so no one was in there thankfully. Interesting to watch though.

After lunch headed off to the Buchan Caves, which were about 45 minutes away in a lovely National Park. They were really spectacular with quite amazing stalectites and stalagmites. After the guided tour we left the park to visit a local pub... still need to find some decent ale! We then went back to the park and used the campsite barbeque to cook up a gourmet meal. Then we set off in search of marsupials! We enjoyed watching a kukkaburra up close on the play equipment and then spotted a young kangaroo feeding quietly near the men's loo! Before we left the park we'd seen a load of kangaroos feeding and hopping along... they are just beautiful.

Saturday 28th February
Called into metung, a bit further down the coast. This is quite an exclusive resort and marina and we enjoyed a walk along the board walk where we saw lots more pelicans, before grabbing a morning coffee. Unfortunately I (linda) left my one and only fleece on the chair here...the one I bought in Millets in Skipton for £20.. oh well Can't find anything under $100 (£50) to replace it, so will make do with my M&S cardi! From Metung we moved to the other side of the mini peninsula to Paynesville, another exclusive resort. We parked up here and walked onto the local ferry to Raymond Island: we'd read that this island had a large amount of koala bears and naively wandered around expecting to see them! There was a map near the ferry port with KOALAS marked clearly on it, so of course we trekked several kilometres, before giving up on them. Only to read later that they were extremely shy and actually slept for up to 17 hours a day!! Oh well. Continued south and settled on a site in Sale for the night. This site had lots of room and we got a good night's sleep. It was right by the river and on the right road for us, which was great.