Last stop before Bear gully and meeting up with KT and AndyDec 22, 2011
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Sunset over ninety mile beach
View of Lakes Entrence (top left).The entrance to Lake Victoria past the...
| Yesterday we set off from Jindbyne at about 10.30am to drive to Lakes Entrance via the Barry Way feeling a little apprehensive as we had had different advice about tackling this route as it consists of 80km of twisting dirt track but we had also been told it was beautiful and very wild so we decided to give it a go. As it had not rained it was dusty and dry and not slippery so in fact it was not difficult at all as long as you went slowly and avoided the worst of the potholes. We only saw 2 cars and a tourist minibus going in the opposite directions all day and two forest workers tidying up the rest areas. There was still evidence of the bus fire of 2003 here too but everything seemed to be getting back to normal. And it certainly was remote. We made a detour for lunch to Little river gorge which was a 300m deep gorge 4km long which has been formed by the Little River over millions of years and had a lookout over it and was impressive. We arrived at Lakes Entrance about 5.30pm to another friendly welcome from the owner of Black Swan motel and the apartment was spacious, clean and comfortable. After a fish and chip eve meal we had a lovely walk across to ninety mile beach where we saw a fabulous sunset. We had a good night’s sleep in our new motel room until 6am when the local sulphur-crested cockatoo decided it was time to get up very noisily! They did settle down and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of Terry-made porridge in the sunshine on the balcony, since we had cooking facilities. There was blue sky and bright sunshine but a cool breeze kept the temperature down to about 21C which was lovely for walking around. We then went to Bairnsdale 30km away and were lucky to get my glasses mended with a new arm by a very kind and generous optician which was a huge relief. After that we went to Paynesville to find that you needed your own boat to get to Rotomah Island which is the bird reserve so we pottered about the shore of Paynesville and Metung where we had another local fish and chip lunch watching all the boats and bird life. It was particularly great watching a pelican fishing in the weeds nearby and swallowing the fish whole. When we got back to Lake Entrance we did some Xmas food shopping before a lovely swim in the outside solar heated motel pool and a salad on the balcony. It was a very much more restful day and very enjoyable. |
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