It’s pretty cloudy this morning, but not all that chilly, and we decide to take our chances walking this morning. We follow a historical walk, up through town, reading the map and the historical markers along the way. We pass the original classroom building, built for 12 girls and 30 boys. It’s the 3rd oldest classroom still in use. Then past the hotel Australasia opened in 1909 with “50 lofty” apartments, now sadly closed and up for sale. Past the Maritime Museum again and through a lovely little park with paths that wend their way down a very steep hill to the Snug Cove harbor where 3 piers are in use for commercial and recreational boating.
Now it’s time to head back uphill to the motel. Great aerobic exercise this morning! We’re ready for our drive down to Bairnsdale, the last stop before Melbourne.
We’re off, heading down Princes Highway, through the bottom of New South Wales and into Victoria. As we cross the state lines we see signs imploring us - “Don’t take fruit into Victoria”! How bizarre is that? What, we can’t bring that banana we just bought at the Coles Grocery story in Eden into Victoria? We get their fanaticism on agriculture from out of the country, but state to state? That’s taking it a bit far!
As we make our way further into Victoria, through the East Gippsland Region, we head more inland as the scenery starts to change. It’s no where near as green here – we wonder if it is a different type of grass or the lack of water. After a couple hours we determine it is definitely lack of water when we see an entire cornfield all dried out – the corn wilted on the stalks. Really odd since just a few hours north they are battling rains and floods. Talk about climate change!
Luckily, right around lunch time, we hit Lakes Entrance, a little town which, as advertised, is the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes – a series of lakes and waterways 400 square kilometres in area. There is a 90 mile beach, tons of water activities, fabulous views and is a favorite for camping and caravan parks. We ride through town, passing the weekly makers market – which we choose to literally pass and head away from the crowds to find a picnic spot for our lunch. A few kilometers down the main road, lined with souvenir shops and restaurants, we find a picnic bench right by the water (and the public toilets!) for our lunch. We are almost to the end of our food supplies, which works out pretty well since tonight is our last night on the road and tomorrow is a very short drive into Melbourne.
Leaving our picnic spot, the road curves inland again and provides stunning vistas across the “entrance” to the “lakes”.
It’s really beautiful here, and reminds us so much of Hilton Head. The low lying, almost marsh-like islands and plants and of course the water and boats all around. Beautiful!
Further up the road, we stumble upon my Mom’s secret international business:
Such a unique name! Would have never thought we’d see it all the way across the world!
Heading to Bairnsdale we decide to chance another little side-trip (still disappointed from our Pebbly Beach fiasco, we didn’t detour anywhere on the drive in the morning) up the “Alpine” Road a bit and into the foothills. There is a little 20 KM detour that winds us up to the town of Bruthen and then back down into Bairnsdale. Turned out to be a very worthwhile detour! The road up to Bruthen wound through farmland on one side and a limestone canyon on the other. The Tambo river carved out the limestone on its journey down from the mountains to the coast, and the resulting views were fantastic with tons of interesting formations and caves strewn all through the walls of the canyon.
Bruthen turned out to be an adorable one-horse sort of little town, with a the obligatory general store, tourist shops as well as an
extremely helpful lady at the Tourist Information center. We stopped in for maps and information, and she proceeded to tell us a little bit about the area, the limestone canyon/caves, the bike path running through town, how exciting it was to meet people from all over the world, suggestions on driving to Melbourne (the 2nd person to tell us to take the scenic southern route on the South Gippsland Highway), and generally just chatted us up for quite a while. We had read in one of the tourist guides that a brewery was going to open soon – so we asked her if the Brewery was open yet, and she looked at her watch and said, oh yes, they open at 11. Hmmmm…..
Out we go, down the one little main street to the Brewery – which was indeed open – and wasn’t worth driving to – we could have walked! The Bullant Brewery – beer with bite! Turns out they’ve been open for a couple years, the guide we had was obviously very old! And even weirder? After we got home, we found out that they bought the all their beer vats from Richbrau Brewery in Richmond after they closed in 2010. How bizarre is that!!!! So we actually drank beer from those same vats in Richmond, Virginia and then 10,000+ miles away in Bruthen, Victoria, Australia! Wow!
So, we spent a lovely sunny afternoon, sitting on their front porch with a flight of beer – and of course wine. The beer was great – and we didn’t even know the Richbrau connection that makes it even better in hindsight.
After that lovely little respite, we head back down the Great Alpine road, through more rolling farmland and into the outskirts of Bairnsdale and the Bairnsdale Motel. At first glance, the hotel is a little odd looking. A typical motor court hotel, it appears to be made of corrugated steel and looks a little odd. There are lovely plantings by the door and a little bench outside, it’s just strange looking. But the owners are lovely and gave us wonderful town information, dinner suggestions, and where to go to see Koalas in the wild, and then took us to our room. Wow! Talk about fabulous! It’s all modern and spacious, with a seating area of leather chairs, all tile bath, corner jacuzzi tub, walk in tiled shower, flat screen tv and little kitchenette. Totally lovely – it’s a shame we are only here for one night!
We make the most of the room, getting organized, settling in, then heading out to Raymond Island to hunt (not literally!) for Koalas!
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