Gippsland Lakes
Down in the salt water country things were still a bit damp. The Gippsland Lakes were yet another revelation – bigger than anticipated and consequently more widespread. Amidst the lakeside holiday shacks on shallow mudflats Tim caught the obligatory black bream.
Lakes Entrance was notable for its fish and chip shops – how many can one town support? Crossing to the ocean there were long stretches of golden sands heading eastwards. After our short time inland we were not a little excited to be back in the salt air.
But the Lakes area wasn’t all about fishing – we did head into the hills to Mitchell River NP for a short walk through a red rock gorge by the Mitchell River and to the Den of Nargun, a sacred place for the Gunnai/Kurnai people. Apparently in these parts most of the cultural knowledge is held by the women and another cave, Deadcock Den, tells blokes pretty plainly what will happen if they go near the place. Nic went to look at that one by herself.
We were both excited to be out walking so that we could try out our new purchases of hiking boots – long overdue. We’ve done a lot of walking so far, and both of us in Blundstones, which isn’t the greatest footwear for hiking all day! In the process of buying them we chatted quite a lot with the guy in the shop, and at one point he called out to the other guy ‘These two climbed Cradle in Blunnies!’ and the other said ‘Didn’t think it was possible!’ and we puffed up a little and felt quite hardcore. While realising all the while that we are clearly NOT hardcore, if we were, we would not have thought twice about climbing Mt Bogong just a few days earlier.
We moved on to spend a couple of nights by Lake Tyers, a little further east, and just a little less developed. Had a late afternoon exploration of the Lake in our tinnie, which included stalking a school of tailor that were leaping out of the water in a feeding frenzy (and managed to catch one of them). It was beautifully still on the inlet, with so many different arms to explore, and we were surrounded by black swans, pelicans, white egrets and all sorts of other birds on our wanderings.
Lakes Entrance was notable for its fish and chip shops – how many can one town support? Crossing to the ocean there were long stretches of golden sands heading eastwards. After our short time inland we were not a little excited to be back in the salt air.
But the Lakes area wasn’t all about fishing – we did head into the hills to Mitchell River NP for a short walk through a red rock gorge by the Mitchell River and to the Den of Nargun, a sacred place for the Gunnai/Kurnai people. Apparently in these parts most of the cultural knowledge is held by the women and another cave, Deadcock Den, tells blokes pretty plainly what will happen if they go near the place. Nic went to look at that one by herself.
We were both excited to be out walking so that we could try out our new purchases of hiking boots – long overdue. We’ve done a lot of walking so far, and both of us in Blundstones, which isn’t the greatest footwear for hiking all day! In the process of buying them we chatted quite a lot with the guy in the shop, and at one point he called out to the other guy ‘These two climbed Cradle in Blunnies!’ and the other said ‘Didn’t think it was possible!’ and we puffed up a little and felt quite hardcore. While realising all the while that we are clearly NOT hardcore, if we were, we would not have thought twice about climbing Mt Bogong just a few days earlier.
We moved on to spend a couple of nights by Lake Tyers, a little further east, and just a little less developed. Had a late afternoon exploration of the Lake in our tinnie, which included stalking a school of tailor that were leaping out of the water in a feeding frenzy (and managed to catch one of them). It was beautifully still on the inlet, with so many different arms to explore, and we were surrounded by black swans, pelicans, white egrets and all sorts of other birds on our wanderings.
posted by Tim and Nic at
2:45 pm
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