Lakes Entrance & Mallacoota Victoria Part 2
April 27th 2010 06:07
Ok so I last left you as we left the Stormbird Cruise at Lakes Entrance, it was about 4pm at this stage and our next step was supposed to be finding a spot to camp for the night. So we scooted down to the information centre to get some information on the camping sites available around the Lakes Entrance district.
I have to say that the Information centre at Lakes Entrance is fabulous, and the staff are wonderful. The staff member spent some time over a map pointing out some free camping spots and describing how to get to some of them. But unfortunately it was here that the housemate got a hankering for a tiki tour, all the way to the tip of Victoria along the coast. Again I refer back to his tendency to make a five minute trip to the hardware store an hour long drive to one much further away. So after some discussions with the Information center bloke we were on our way to Mallacoota.
The trip to Mallacoota took a little over 2 ½ hours, it was a lovely drive along the Princes Hwy and we didn’t encounter any traffic issues at all. And the GiPiS was good enough to make sure we got the right turn off to Mallacoota. Any one checking our route will notice that it wasn’t quite a coastal trip, but the information guy said that you can only go so far along the coast anyway and as we had a camping trailer in tow we decided to go the main route. Not that I feel robbed of any views, it was a spectacular trip, even though I was getting a little grumpy by the end of the drive.
In arriving at Mallacoota I was quite amazed at how busy it was, we drove down to the water to find a camping site absolutely bursting at the seams. I took a few photos and looked about the place then we decided to start the drive back to Lakes Entrance. We did consider staying in Mallacoota the night, but then thought of the long trip back home the following day and changed our minds pretty quickly. So although we didn’t stay long, it’s nice to say that we have been to there.
We decided not to have dinner before we left but that we would stop somewhere and have dinner on the way or when we arrived at our camping site for the night. We began to get a bit puckish on our way back just before Mount Raymond, so we headed down the lookout road Tower Road. I am so glad we made that decision, we managed to set up the table and have dinner with a setting sun over a beautiful landscape. Of everything we saw that weekend, that setting sun made the trip worthwhile.
After our dinner we headed off down back towards Lakes Entrance (the housemate suggested staying where we had dinner, but I was not keen to sleep under a radio tower). Our destination for the night was a free Victorian Parks Campsite down a road off Lake Tyers Road. Now when I say a road I actually mean a bumpy track (remember the bumpy bit for later on) and Lake Tyers Road is a dirt road. The GiPiS was fantastic in finding both roads although our turn off road was not named on the map, but it was shown, and it even knew they were dirt tracks (FYI most of the turn offs to the right down Lake Tyers Road had camping spots). The drive down our turn off track was a fun trip, pottering along hoping nobody would be coming the other way in the dark as it was a single lane road, and we had the odd kangaroo bound across the track just to remind us we were going deep into the bush.
We didn’t reach the camping spot until after 9pm and it was dark, but we could see it had quite a few visitors already set up for the night, but once nice gentleman got up with his torch and waved us through to an empty spot next to them which I thought was fantastic!!. We didn’t stay up that night as we were both pretty tired so we crawled into the camping van and fell asleep pretty much straight away.
Waking up the next morning we saw how beautiful the area was and how close the water was, unfortunately as the area didn’t have any toilets and all the trees were barren of leaves we had to make a dash back out to the road and the nearest rest spot. The housemate was fine, he found a tree to stand behind, but I wasn’t going to take the risk of someone spotting me doing a quick pit stop in the bush. So we packed up quickly and went on our way – this is where the bumpy track came back to haunt me. However we made it safely to Nowa Nowa, where I can tell you the local service station has very clean toilets!
After our pit stop we carried onto Lakes Entrance to have a bbq breakfast down near the water and took time out to feed the swans and seagulls our left over bread. Everything was fine until there were a few too many swans and I felt a little intimidated, I am a shorty and the Swans came up to my chin so I was a little worried they would take out my nose if I didn’t feed them, but they were well behaved and once they realised I was out of bread they went off on their merry way to the next person with food for them.
After breakfast we started the journey home, and this is where we will leave the trip, nothing interesting happened on the way home (except my struggle to keep my eyes open). But overall I would have to say that I had a most fantastic birthday weekend!!
I have to say that the Information centre at Lakes Entrance is fabulous, and the staff are wonderful. The staff member spent some time over a map pointing out some free camping spots and describing how to get to some of them. But unfortunately it was here that the housemate got a hankering for a tiki tour, all the way to the tip of Victoria along the coast. Again I refer back to his tendency to make a five minute trip to the hardware store an hour long drive to one much further away. So after some discussions with the Information center bloke we were on our way to Mallacoota.
The trip to Mallacoota took a little over 2 ½ hours, it was a lovely drive along the Princes Hwy and we didn’t encounter any traffic issues at all. And the GiPiS was good enough to make sure we got the right turn off to Mallacoota. Any one checking our route will notice that it wasn’t quite a coastal trip, but the information guy said that you can only go so far along the coast anyway and as we had a camping trailer in tow we decided to go the main route. Not that I feel robbed of any views, it was a spectacular trip, even though I was getting a little grumpy by the end of the drive.
In arriving at Mallacoota I was quite amazed at how busy it was, we drove down to the water to find a camping site absolutely bursting at the seams. I took a few photos and looked about the place then we decided to start the drive back to Lakes Entrance. We did consider staying in Mallacoota the night, but then thought of the long trip back home the following day and changed our minds pretty quickly. So although we didn’t stay long, it’s nice to say that we have been to there.
We decided not to have dinner before we left but that we would stop somewhere and have dinner on the way or when we arrived at our camping site for the night. We began to get a bit puckish on our way back just before Mount Raymond, so we headed down the lookout road Tower Road. I am so glad we made that decision, we managed to set up the table and have dinner with a setting sun over a beautiful landscape. Of everything we saw that weekend, that setting sun made the trip worthwhile.
View from Mount Raymond
After our dinner we headed off down back towards Lakes Entrance (the housemate suggested staying where we had dinner, but I was not keen to sleep under a radio tower). Our destination for the night was a free Victorian Parks Campsite down a road off Lake Tyers Road. Now when I say a road I actually mean a bumpy track (remember the bumpy bit for later on) and Lake Tyers Road is a dirt road. The GiPiS was fantastic in finding both roads although our turn off road was not named on the map, but it was shown, and it even knew they were dirt tracks (FYI most of the turn offs to the right down Lake Tyers Road had camping spots). The drive down our turn off track was a fun trip, pottering along hoping nobody would be coming the other way in the dark as it was a single lane road, and we had the odd kangaroo bound across the track just to remind us we were going deep into the bush.
We didn’t reach the camping spot until after 9pm and it was dark, but we could see it had quite a few visitors already set up for the night, but once nice gentleman got up with his torch and waved us through to an empty spot next to them which I thought was fantastic!!. We didn’t stay up that night as we were both pretty tired so we crawled into the camping van and fell asleep pretty much straight away.
Waking up the next morning we saw how beautiful the area was and how close the water was, unfortunately as the area didn’t have any toilets and all the trees were barren of leaves we had to make a dash back out to the road and the nearest rest spot. The housemate was fine, he found a tree to stand behind, but I wasn’t going to take the risk of someone spotting me doing a quick pit stop in the bush. So we packed up quickly and went on our way – this is where the bumpy track came back to haunt me. However we made it safely to Nowa Nowa, where I can tell you the local service station has very clean toilets!
Swans
After our pit stop we carried onto Lakes Entrance to have a bbq breakfast down near the water and took time out to feed the swans and seagulls our left over bread. Everything was fine until there were a few too many swans and I felt a little intimidated, I am a shorty and the Swans came up to my chin so I was a little worried they would take out my nose if I didn’t feed them, but they were well behaved and once they realised I was out of bread they went off on their merry way to the next person with food for them.
After breakfast we started the journey home, and this is where we will leave the trip, nothing interesting happened on the way home (except my struggle to keep my eyes open). But overall I would have to say that I had a most fantastic birthday weekend!!
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