Day 1
Well, we understand that East Gippsland is in drought, and that it is all relative to the norm for an area. This sort of drought is very easy on the eye!
We had been to Mallacoota Inlet years ago and had seen the funky tree trunk carvings and murals around the wharf and Jetty area. We recently learned that due to flooding in the inlet last year, the Jetty and boat ramps are all still under water, and several walking tracks are inundated so we only took a short detour along that road to Gypsy Point which is at the top of the inlet. There was all lush and green, and the Jetty was pretty close to the water line!
Mallacoota is on the edge of Croajingolong NP, which is pretty sizeable, mainly setup for hikers and the few roads are dry weather only, so as it was raining, that meant we didn’t explore it.
Along the Princes Highway are two free or donation camps, both well maintained and attended, at Genoa and Cann River, but we continued through to Bemm River and the CP there. I forgot to check the altitude along that stretch of the Highway – it looks and feels pretty high with incredibly steep, DEEP, forested valleys off the side of the road. We descended a long way to Bemm River!!
The water here is Sydenham Inlet into which the Bemm River flows, and which is adjacent to Cape Conran NP which we will visit tomorrow. Funnily enough, this inlet is also apparently closed at the moment, very full and the water is over the jetties etc. – must have been some flood last year!
The CP info and map is a tad disconcerting as most of the back page is devoted to what to do in Extreme Events, such as bush fire, flood or extreme Storms – basically walk calmly to the pub, which is the designated “safer place”, “place of last resort” but NOT a “refuge”! It is a long way from anywhere, through a lot of highly flammable paperbark and stringbark Forest, so valid concern!
Day 2
Thank you to the travellers who suggested Cape Conran to us, and thank you to the weather – we had gorgeous weather and a low tide – all the better to explore the rock pools there! Checked out East Cape and West Cape and the banksia forests there. All gorgeous!
From there travelled to Marlo where the Snowy River meets the sea, (quite exciting really -I assumed it went to Hume Dam and thence into the Murray – wrong again!) then beside the Snowy River to Orbost but not up into the mountains to its source! The river there is big enough to have had a shipping company operating in years gone by, transporting vegetable produce to Melbourne! The area around Orbost is flattish river valley with large dairy herds, and veggie farms- although it looks reasonably green they are handfeeding cattle. The shipping company was put out of business by the Snowy River Railway and that has been out of business for quite a while but the rail line with its wooden bridges is now being repurposed to rail trails for tourism!
There is a recommended forest walk 53 km out of Orbost through ancient giant trees at Errinundra NP, but with rising winds we figured it was not a good idea!
Heading to Lake Tyers Beach (near Lakes Entrance) for the night, we drove through the drought dry areas – seriously, even the bracken is brown and crispy. No wonder the fires of a week or two ago were so terrible.
Inlet is so picturesque, black swans abound, many migratory birds visit, including a Godwit that flies between here and Siberia where it breeds!!
The local pub does excellent Lakes Entrance seafood and the best sticky date pudding I have ever experienced!
Day 3
After several perfect days, the next day was softly soggy and gusty so vegged out in the CP with a view over a mushy ocean. Ahhh!
Strolled along the lakeshore in the afternoon, checking out the bird life and the rock strata on the shore – it appears to have been a lake for eons, with the odd massive flood going through from time to time. Wending our way back via several streets, there are a lot of new builds, large stylish houses, units, etc – obviously the area is popular for living in as well as holidaying.
Day 4
Today we visited Lakes Entrance – wow – the Gippsland lakes are huge! They are fed by 6 rivers and open to the sea via a bar that is kept open by dredging.
The seaward beach and sand dune is probably 150m wide, then there is the lake/channel inside that of similar width and lined on the town side with jetties, berths, marinas, then what seems to be the permanent sandbar on which the township and its 21 caravan parks, many holiday units, motels, businesses, cafes, permanent homes etc are built and then a run of jetties for hire craft and lake-going vessels on the inside lake which has a hill on the other side with more homes – and that is just around the town area!
We chatted to the lake cruise people to learn that (a) trips were not happening/remote possibility today because of misty rainy weather and (b) their longest cruise of over 5 hours was 70km return (plus lunch break) and really only covered a tiny fraction of the Lakes! The Lakes cover some 420 square kilometres!
So we walked over a bridge and across the sand dune to the beach and back, strolled around a part of the town (the main drag is about 2km long), then back in the bus and headed towards Paynesville where the cruises go. On the way we found some lookouts from which we could see the bar (dangerous), the many colours of the waters covering the sandbars and channels of some of the Lakes, and spotted some estuarine dolphins, probably the rare Burrunan bottlenosed dolphin which only exists, in Port Phillip Bay and Tasmania apparently. All stunning.
At Paynesville we found the same thing – you could sort of access the shoreline, but there are an awful lots of jetties and boats there too. That village had many busy and serious boat repair facilities. Obviously the area is best for boaties and fishos, neither of which we are these days.
So we are glad to have seen it, it is so pretty, soo big, so far around (160km by road from Lakes Entrance to the next village, Loch Sport, on the western seaward side of the Lakes). These Lakes are also RAMSAR listed because of supporting so many migratory birds from Siberia and Alaska, as well as about 1% of the global populations of black swans, chestnuts teals, musk ducks and many fairy terns( thanks Wikipedia). See also http://www.loveourlakes.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/GLEF-Project-Gippsland-Ports-GIPPSLAND-LAKES-SUSTAINABLE-BOATING-PLAN-FINAL.pdf if you are keen.
Finished the day a bit south west of the extremity of the Lakes, at Port Albert where there is council provided free camp on the shores of more channels with more jetties, black swans and a justifiably celebrated little fish and chip shop!
Just looked looked up Gippsland goldfields – they were much smaller than Bendigo and Ballarat but nevertheless financed growth of Bairnsdale and Sale and infrastructure such as train lines of many towns and villages in the eastern half of Victoria.
Gippsland was named after Sir George Gipps, a Governor of NSW ( which for a while included what is now Victoria and New Zealand) during 1830s and 1840s. He struggled to introduce major reforms in education, treatment and fairness with respect to Aborigines, and other progressive ideas.
Day 5
Today is our shortest distance day on record -29 km to Port Welshpool then 21 to Foster.
Started the day with a stroll along the foreshore on a very full high tide – quite the transformation! Then checked out the Gippsland Regional Maritime Museum across the park from the free camp. excellent histories and artefacts – helped by the fact that Port Albert was a major Port in the day, with ship building docks and quite a few shipwrecks to salvage interesting things from.
After lunch, rocked around to Port Welshpool. Tiny town, but coast guard and quarantine area and slightly easier egress to Bass Strait and views across Little Snake Island to the NE corner of Wilson’s Prom. Best feature is a rebuilt, long hook of an historic Jetty which juts out into Corner Inlet and gives a great idea of the shallows, channels, rapidly changing water levels in the Corner Inlet Marine and National Park which the top half of Wilson’s Prom cradles. 
Next stop Barry Beach with its own dredged channel and Port Authority and prohibited areas, and relatively large shipyards. Glimpse of more of WP across a dairy herd.
Foster is a pretty little town 30km out of WP and seems very vibrant and downright rainforesty. CP tonight to bake some sourdough and shower😉.
Day 6
Day dawned with more light misting rain/ low cloud and breezes. Collected info from visitor info centre and excellent salad rolls from bakery in Foster and headed south to The Prom.
Picnic Bay was first stop. Views of Picnic Bay and Whiskey Bay from lookout as well as islands. There were even wildflowers!
Wound our way to Tidal River and info centre there. Dodged the school groups and strolled across the very flat Norman Beach to mouth of Tidal River, then wandered beside it and eventually along the boardwalk with its fishing platforms – surprisingly beautiful.
Decided to do the Lilli Pilli track but realised it was getting a bit late, and still doubtful weather, so coughed up the $61.40 for the unpowered and basic campsites – to be fair there are no entry fees for any Victorian national parks, and they do have water and beach showers all around the area there and numerous loo blocks, not mention the rest of the infrastructures.
Great decision! We got to walk to the far end of Norman Beach at very low tide and see and feel the granites.
There are five types of granite making up the domes that are the mountains in the centre of Wilson’s Prom – quintuple joy!!!
The granites here have huge crystals, much bigger than any we have seen elsewhere in WA etc, upto 2cm square and the info indicates that the molten lava intrusion would have taken MILLIONS of years to cool to facilitate that!!!!! 
Then there are the tors which in this case means the molten lava intrusion dome would have chewed up and swallowed previously formed million of years older granite into chunks that set into the cooling matrix -wow!!!
Found all sorts of tracks of tiny crabs, molluscs and/or worms, and amazing marine growth on the rocks at the end!
Day 7
Wild night! Of the gale forced wind kind, With low cloud and rain too. The morning did not improve matters, 70kph wind gusts, driving rain, forecast continuation of same for the area for the next few days plus troughs and cold fronts to boot, so erred on the the side of caution and figured the walk will have to wait for another time, maybe.
Careful drive north again and then west toward Phillip Island. Weather easing the further we went. Checked out Fish River eateries, Meeniyan garden sculptures shop, the most excellent Shell Museum at Inverloch ( but not the dinosaur fossil yielding rock platform as under a very high tide), and ended up at small village of Corinella for the evening – lovely peaceful views of yet another inlet, at least until about 50 kids arrived for a weekend booze up, and then the strong winds caught us up, and blew the gang back to their camp. Phew!
Day 8
Last day of the exploring part of the trip dawned damp and windy, again! At least it meant that not many folk were at Phillip Island’s Nobbies Antarctic Adventure Centre at the western end. That was fascinating – lots of info presented in big pictures and not many words, great for kids and the casual tourist, and then another area with huge screens showing all things Antarctic as well as an augmented reality show which was intriguing!!
The lunch at the venue was excellent for a medium price and picture windows overlook offshore islands and revealed that the day had indeed become fine!
Wandered the board walks around the steep slopes and spied the penguin tracks and indeed some penguins in their nesting boxes, not to mention the deep rough seas breaking on the rough rock platforms that the little tackers have to conquer with the full tummies to bring dinner home to the chicks! Far out – how awesome are they!!!
Then drove around to where the Penguin Parade is held nightly. Very relieved to see that location is a sandy beach, so at least with the spotlights on, they don’t have to rock climb to dizzy heights as well!
There are many pairs of Cape Barren Geese on the Island too.
Panny’s Amazing World of Chocolate was our final adventure – and so much FUN. The interactive displays are captivating and delicious, the side show alley tricky, and it was great fun making chocolate squirls. Highly recommended!!
Phillip Island has so many excellent attractions – check it out! It would be a great destination for a family holiday too.
Well, we will sign off for this trip, and just finish off the next couple days going home.
Greywanderers2 