JUNE 8th..
Today was to be our last day in
Lakes (for now) before we moved further along the lake system to
Paynesville and so, because the weather was nice, another bike ride
was on the cards, this time on the other side of town just to see
what we could see. Cycling around Lakes is easy if nothing else. Flat
with relatively wide roads, some bike lanes and bike/pedestrian paths
it was easy to get around and by the time we got back to the boat,
we'd ridden about 12 kilometres. Ah …. doesn't the distance fly
when you're having fun? Yet although interesting, with a lot of
little jetties and hire boats, it wasn't quite as interesting as the
main drag.
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| Welcome to a really beautiful part of the country. |
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| Round round wheels goin' round round round, down up peddalin' down up down...... |
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| Hey Jason.... they say hello from Lakes |
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| There are heaps of small hire boats on this side of town as well as foot pedal boats. |
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| We took a little rest at the halfway mark at Lion's Park |
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| Beach fishing along 90 mile beach. |
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| Almost all of the bottle brush trees are of the golden variety. |
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| Yet another of those silly pelicans. |
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| Just some of the birds we have met around Lakes |
By the time we stepped onto the
boat and put the bikes away it was starting to drizzle and so, to end
another energetic day, the obligatory Nana Nap came into effect.
Tomorrow we leave for
Paynesville.
JUNE 9th...
The weather this time was
fairly nice as we made our way further into the Lakes system past
Metung and towards Paynesville.
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| Past the Metung Hotel, this time in better weather. |
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| On the way to Paynesville, everything was dull and in shadow except for this solitary little island. |
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| The lakes are actually very expansive. We only saw such a small part of them. |
Dave had a week's work to do
and Paynesville had good facilities without having to worry about
showers that froze the wobbly and sticky out bits. They also had free
washers and dryers, a kitchen with free tea and coffee, a microwave
and a lounge area. Okay, I say free but it wasn't really. The berth
still had to be paid for but at this stage it was worth it.
When we eventually got to
Paynesville Slip Bight Marina, which is actually located on
Burrabogie Island, we knew we had been relegated to Finger 5 but had
no real idea where on that finger we were supposed to be so we just
picked an empty berth that was absolutely covered in gigantic piles
of bird muck, thus giving a subtle indication that it was likely not
being used at the time, and tied up. Luckily staying at this berth
was not a problem and, after we'd hosed off the bird goop, it
remained our 'home base' for the next couple of weeks.
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| Our noisy neighbours and poop machines. |
The town itself was a couple of
kilometres away and so we had to ride in each time we needed
something (although Dave did make an almost daily trip to buy warm,
fresh bread from the awesome bakery). We also went to town a few
times via the waterways, which gave a completely different aspect of
the dock areas. It was easier to do this when groceries were needed
simply because we could fit more into the dinghy than onto the small
bike racks.
For the next few days the
weather came in very ordinary, cold, drizzly and pretty much
downright icky and since Dave had work to do anyway and since we
didn't have a complete engine in the boat, I spent my time doing the
mundane and boring stuff like cleaning, and spent a lot of time doing
pretty much not-a-lot. I was beginning to feel quite hemmed in and
the chilly weather was starting to get to both of us. Mind you, it
would have been a whole lot worse if we didn't have such an awesome
air conditioner.
JUNE 19th
On this particularly nice day
we loaded the bikes into the dinghy and puttered across the river to
Raymond Island, a small conservation island that apparently has more
than 200 koalas living on it. The koalas were introduced to the
island in 1953 and it is considered a very safe environment for them.
A Little History
**!
Raymond
Island was established and named after William
Odell Raymond, originally a magistrate from New South Wales who
established himself as a squatter in Gippsland in the 1840s The
island is 6km
long by 2km wide, and is just 200 metres off the coast and has a
population of around 500 people. **
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| Seriously.... there are just SO many way to die in Victoria. |
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| Land care and conservation is an ongoing project on Raymond Island. |
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| Someone's train signals, but not a train in sight. :) |
For the most part, we kept off
of the main roads and opted for the more rural, rutted variety that
makes your teeth rattle and your voice sound funny as you're riding
along. We had intended riding around the entire perimeter of the
small island but unfortunately our navigational skills were somewhere
east of Mars that day and so we ended up going straight through the
guts, and also somehow ending up riding a couple of kilometres along
a no through road that was clearly marked on the street sign, but
which we somehow both entirely missed. The compensation of taking the
dead end though, was that we saw the only 2 koalas that we were going
to see that day.
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| In parts, towards the centre of the island, the gums had died off. There seemed to be a big effort to stop the spread of whatever may be killing them |
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| The rutted roads along which we rode, and jarred every bone in our bodies. |
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| One of only 2 koalas we saw that day, but still it was worth it. |
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| We did see a bonus kookaburra just hanging around. |
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| Signposts. Many of them were hand written. |
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| No Through Road.... there in red and white and yet we missed it completely. D'oh. |
After cutting through the back
roads, we made it back to the small town area and the ferry that
shunted back and forth all day long. We hopped the Raymond Island
chain ferry which, apart from boat, is the only way to access Raymond
Island . We went across to Paynesville for a coffee and a bit of a
sit (oh and cake... big, fat, sweet, gooey lemon meringue pie and
awesome cheesecake.... droooool!) and then had to hop the ferry back
again as the dinghy was still tied up on that side.
We'd ridden a
long, long way overall.
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| Ferry between Raymond Island and Paynesville. |
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| The flap was closed!!!! What was the emergency? Tell meeeeee!! |
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| A poor little one legged seagull waiting for his fair share of chips. |
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|
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| Looking across towards the northern tip of Paynesville from Raymond Island |
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| The view from the Raymond Island Ferry looking towards Paynesville. |
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| Flocking birds. This was a regular thing. We think they were following schools of bait fish. |
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| Dolphins frolicking near the ferry |
JUNE 22nd >>
JULY 2nd
Our meanderings on this day
were a little different as we left the bikes behind, hopped the
dinghy and tootled around the various waterways to take a look at how
the other half lives.
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| Just one of the beautiful waterways around the many islands that dot the Gippsland Lakes |
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| One of the houses that juts out over the waterway. |
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| How the other half live |
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| Footbridge between islands |
Well, I have to say, they live pretty darned
well. We puttered up and down and around the islands looking at the
oversized boats at their private jetties, marvelling at the size of
some of the houses, playing chicken with swans and ducking around
ducks until eventually we came to a low bridge. In fact a VERY low
bridge. So low that the only way we could get beneath it was to
hunker down on the floor of the dinghy. We emerged from beneath the
bridge with a big 'aaaarrrrrr me hearties!!!' along with a big high 5
and a couple of funny looks from the locals.
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| There are swans all over the place, and they love to play chicken with the dinghy. |
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| Low bridge coming up!!! |
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| The view of the underside of the bridge. |
The rest of our time in
Paynesville was spent waiting for the engine parts to be ready,
washing the brown gunk off of the sides of the hull, Dave did even
more extra work that was given to him and we filled in the days as
best we could. Towards our last weekend at Paynesville, we discussed
either catching the bus or hiring a car and going to the snow for a
day or two, but in the end that plan fell apart as Dave's work had
him revising reports etc. In the end the engine was fixed and running
sweet, Dave's work was done and we left once again returned to Lakes
for just a couple of nights until the weather window was open. It had
been a nice stay even if we didn't end up seeing even a fraction of
what the Gippsland Lakes has to offer. We'll be back one day.
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