New Year road trip day 2: Lakes Entrance

I woke the next day with very sore glutes, calves and quads from the previous day's exertions (as well as sunburn on the tops of my feet because I forgot to suncreen them), but I dragged myself out of bed early, ready to hit the road for Lakes Entrance. The morning was pleasantly cool and dewy. 

For non-Victorians, Lakes Entrance is in Gippsland - the southern section of Victoria that's east of Melbourne - and it's such a beautiful part of the state. It has amazing beaches, lush farmland with rolling hills and not-too-distant mountains. Despite being more than a month into summer, parts of it were still green. 

We turned off at the small town of Toora to visit Agnes Falls and there was gorgeousness everywhere we looked. And cows. It was just so verdant. 

I'd never heard of Agnes Falls until planning this trip, even though they are the highest single drop falls in Victoria - but they were a very impressive sight. The Agnes River was calm and glassy before tumbling into a deep, rocky gorge. 

Look at that mirror-like river 

More of the falls (not the full drop)

The wall of the gorge opposite the falls was a series of tall, rugged, rocky columns, but there were too many trees in the way to get a photo of it (damned nature!). No, wait. I love nature. The native bush smelled amazing and we saw (and heard) two black cockatoos screeching in a tree near the falls. 

 Agnes River and fallen tree

A nearby windfarm

 More verdure...and a river runs through it

 More hay rolls and green hills

  

 Green hill with curious cow

Next we headed for Woodside Beach, near the start of the iconic Ninety Mile Beach. At about 150km (94 miles), Ninety Mile Beach is one of the longest uninterrupted stretches of beach in the world. I was thrilled to read that sharks - including Great Whites - have been known to breed in the shallows along the beach, but we weren't there during mating season (note to self: revisit during shark sexy time). 

 

The Surf Life Saving Club patrol

We missed a turn and ended up in Lochsport, which sits on a skinny finger of land between two lakes, right on the coast (that triangle of blue is the ocean).   

It's home to a cousin of the Loch Ness Monster, and her baby.

Our next stop was another lakeside town called Metung. Allow me to share a snippet of the conversation as we drove along: 

Me (looking at map): Where's Metung?

Luke: In your mouth! (Laughs hysterically)

Hawhaw. It's pronounced MEE-tung, but after that we called it Me-TUNG. 

I'd heard many people sing the praises of Metung, and it was certainly pretty - a pleasant mix of water views, and a village spread across low hills covered with native bush - but I found it a little too...Portsea for my liking (i.e. a place where people with plenty of money like to take their summer holidays with their big, shiny boats).

 Rich person(s) holidaying with yacht

Lakes Entrance, named for the artificial channel (highlighted below) connecting Bass Strait to the Gippsland Lakes, was our final destination for the day.   

We booked into a motel room for the night and then took ourselves for a walk. 

 Footbridge over lake to the beach

 Fishing boats

Some other boats

A friend had highly recommended a fish and chip shop in Lakes Entrance  - the best fish n chips EVER - so we headed there for dinner. Going on the number of patrons in the shop and the long wait for our order, it was indeed a purveyor of fine fish n chips. 

I don't eat fish, but I can say that the chips were excellent: crispy outside and fluffy inside.  I also sweet potato cakes for the first time and they were yummy (also enormous).

Then it was back to our motel and to bed. I think we were in bed before 10.00 pm (maybe even 9.30 pm) every night of our trip and I sighed with contented exhaustion every night as I laid down my weary body. Aaaaaaaah.  

On that note, I'm going to take my weary body to bed. Day three to follow...

Another year over, a new one just begun

Happy 2015 everyone. Yeah, I'm still hanging around. I didn't manage to revive my blogging mojo towards the end of 2014, but I'm committed to giving it a good kick up the bum this year.

I feel as if 2014 was an average year for me. Nothing awful happened, but nothing wonderful happened either. I can't think of a highlight. It was just...meh. I wonder if my lack of blogging has anything to do with it? The unexamined life is not worth living and all that? It's not as if I didn't do anything fun. There was glee.

A more likely explanation is my chronic fatigue (which also partly explains my lack of blogging). For the past three or four months I feel as if I did nothing but work and sleep. There were quite a few days where I came home from work and went straight to bed and some days on the weekends when I spent most of the day sleeping or on the couch in my pyjamas staring at the internet. I did do fun stuff, but I could have had more fun if I had some energy.

This year I plan to get some energy. I'm going to overhaul my diet by having a crack at the paleo diet. Stop rolling your eyes, you. I'm skeptical about the science paleo proponents use to back up their caveman eating (and Pete Evans is bloody annoying), but the diets prescribed by the medical specialists I've been seeing for years have done almost nothing to relieve my fatigue. I've read so many stories of people overcoming chronic, severe fatigue - people who felt like crap all the time like me, but felt amazing after going paleo - that I can't ignore it (or sneer at it) anymore. I want to feel amazing (although I'd settle for good). I've been tired for 20 years. I've had enough.

But I'm not going to start it until after Luke and I get back from our road trip next weekend (special diet + travel = too hard).  Wooh, road trip! We're going on a coastal and high country jaunt that will take us to the pointy end of Victoria and the highest mountain in Australia. 

Our proposed route (enlarge for bigger picture)

The route covers a bit more than 1,600 kms (about 22 hours of driving), which we will do in a week. The major stops on our itinerary start with Wilsons Promontory on day one. Luke hasn't been since he was a kid and I haven't been for more than five years, so I'm looking forward to it.  

Day two will take us to Ninety Mile Beach and Lakes Entrance, which is as far east as I've been in Victoria so everything thereafter will be new to me.  Next up will be Mallacoota at the pointy end of the state. I'd like to go over to nearby Gabo Island because it's mentioned on the ABC weather report quite often and I want to say, "We've been there!" every time. 

Next up we'll head to Jindabyne over the border in NSW and Mount Kosciuszko National Park (pronounced Kozzi-osco for you non-Aussies, although the proper pronunciation of the Polish name is Koz-chooz-ko). 

I've just read that you can walk to the top of the mountain and it's not even that physically demanding! "Anyone with a modest level of fitness can walk to the top," Wikipedia says. The walk is about 8km one way though.  

After that we'll head south to Omeo. I'm particularly looking forward to this part of the trip because I've read the high country scenery is breathtaking (that might be in part due to the windy roads and steep drops to the forest floor...). 

Our final major stop will be Mansfield before we coast home.  We leave this Sunday. I can't wait! 

Now I need to go an have a lie down. 

Gippsland glee - part I

So, our little getaway! We hit the road at about 9.00am on Friday and made our first stop for morning tea at Kilkunda, a small seaside town not far past the turn off to the tourist hotspot Phillip Island. 

We ate at an overpriced café ($10 for 2 small pieces of fruit toast!) overlooking the gloomy grey ocean, and then went for a wander to the beach...where I had an accidental paddle in the sea. I was bending over writing in the sand, thinking I was out of reach of the water, but no.  My sneakers, socks and the bottom of my cargo pants were saturated and sandy. Thankfully my pants dried quickly - I didn't have another pair - but I did have another pair of shoes. My socks spent the rest of the trip drying on the dashboard of the car. 

My soggy state didn't deter me from taking photos of the lovely old trestle bridge that runs parallel to the the shore. 

We stopped at Cape Paterson (ho-hum) before heading on to Shack Bay, a pretty little bay with a rock formation we thought looked like Australia rising out of - or sinking into - the ocean. It's called Eagle's Nest. A google search reveals we aren't the only people who see the resemblance to northern Australia. 

Tiny snake - about the size of a big worm - beside the 

steps down to the beach

Luke with big seaweed

Our next stop was our destination - Venus Bay. Before heading to our accommodation we did the rounds of the surf beaches, which are evocatively named Surf Beach 1, Surf Beach 2 and so on. It was very windy on the Bass Strait side of the narrow peninsula where Venus Bay is located, but a few hardy fisherman and paddlers braved the conditions. 

Beachgoers in the mist

We checked into our cabin and then headed to the nearby Tarwin Lower pub for dinner. We stopped on the way to take photos of the sun setting over the Tarwin River. 

 Cow waiting for its close-up while Luke takes sunset shots

We both had a huge T-bone steak for dinner at the pub which has one of those set ups where you get a ticket with a number for your order and they announce it over the PA when your order is ready.  We got a giggle out of the rather nasal voice of the announcer. "Nointy-noin. Your order is ready. Nointy-noin." 

Then it was a back to our cabin where we were lulled to sleep by the sound of the surf and the wind in the trees.