SUNDAY OCTOBER 15     HOME TO LAKES ENTRANCE     345kms

As usual on most Sundays, I was up early in order to breakfast with M, who comes to dinner Saturdays and stays overnight. She was invited to join us on this little trip, but had other appointments.

John had to get going much earlier than was his usual custom.

Breakfast over, in a leisurely fashion, m departed and we got stuck into the last minute preparations. Pot plants were watered, power points turned off, laptops and camera packed. We were soon ready to move Bus out onto the street, hitch up the Terios behind it, load the dog – who had gone into her usual anxiety mode. As in…”are they going to go somewhere without me?”

Trundled off at 10.15am on a pleasant morning. Blue sky, some sunshine, only high cloud.

Drove through Bayswater. There removal of the railway level crossing there, earlier this year, had certainly improved the traffic flow. Onto Eastlink to the Monash Freeway.

One hiccup, though. Our e-tag did not beep as we passed under the detection gantries. Had no way of knowing whether the tag in Terios was picked up. That was something that would need to be checked in the coming week. We discussed whether these things have batteries that need periodic replacement? Or if it had just died, for reasons unknown.

Once onto the Monash we were into roadwork territory. It seemed that lanes were being added. So, from Eastlink, to beyond Berwick, there was constriction of lanes, and 80kmh speed limit, and a confusion of yellow and white line lane markers – the yellow ones were the temporary ones to follow.

It seems that, these days, there is just constant catch up being played, where Melbourne has outgrown its infrastructure – and then the improvement of this leads to more growth, and so on. Those of us in the outer east are waiting to find out which route, of three alternatives, will be the chosen one for the extension of the Ring Road, which currently rather abruptly ends at a standard road. I would love to see the government be truly visionary and create a true outer ring road around the urban area, but that is not likely to happen.

We seemed to encounter a lot of traffic, compared to what I would expect on a Sunday. This was so for both ways – towards Melbourne as well as out the way we were going. It flowed, but was solid, and did not really lessen until the Latrobe Valley region.

The day was quite hazy. Usually, travelling the Princes Highway through the near parts of Gippsland, the blue rises of the Great Dividing Range can be seen to the north, quite close in places. Today, they were hardly visible at all.

Approaching Morwell, the chimney stacks of the now closed Hazelwood Power Station were to our right. It seemed strange to see these without any smoke or steam coming from them.

Defunct power station

But further on, at Traralgon, there were the familiar plumes coming from the Loy Yang plant.

At Traralgon, our unpredictable GPS wanted to direct us via Heyfield and Maffra, thus avoiding Sale. This seemed strange. When John moved the gadget from his car to Bus, this morning, he had not changed it from car to truck mode, so it would not be picking up on things that might worry us, like low rail bridges! So we ignored it and stayed on the highway. Later we realized that its requested detour route was because of the several lots of roadworks happening along the highway. But being Sunday, construction was paused, so the works didn’t bother us.

There was clearly much effort – and expense – being put into duplicating the highway from the Latrobe Valley to Sale, and beyond, to Bairnsdale. Much of the section from Traralgon to Sale was already complete.

We needed to stop in Sale to give the rather hot dog a drink and walk, and get ourselves some lunch. On our past few trips, I’d stopped my usual practice of packing lunch before we left home, as John inevitably was tempted by the bakery fare at Yea or Heathcote. Today, I should have made some! We didn’t see much of promise, food wise, where we could park the rig, as we drove through Sale. But, on the far side, there was a Red Rooster, so we turned down the side street before it and found Victoria Gardens – easy parking.

Hot dog

John walked to buy lunch and I watered and walked dog, who was really hot. She still had much of her thick winter coat, it seemed, I might need to investigate some sort of cooling jacket for her, for hot travel days like these. Or see if we could get vehicle air-con installed in the Bus. It did not appear to have ever had this and of course the motorhome unit on the roof does not work when we are travelling.

Victoria Gardens Sale

John came back with a chicken roll for himself, and a small container of chips for me. Not the healthier fare I’d have preferred, but beggars and all that…

There were a couple of interesting old water towers in the Gardens, on one of which restoration work appeared to be happening.

Water tower at Victoria Gardens

It was 1.45pm when we left Sale. As we drove past the Red Rooster it became apparent that there is quite a cluster of food outlets in that section. There was also a pizza place, a Subway and a hot bread bakery. I will remember that for future travel.

Stopped again at a park in Stratford – a toilet stop for the humans, this time. The little park there would also make a pleasant coffee or lunch break spot. There was easy parking and some information boards.

Road accidents have been a problem on the unduplicated sections of the Bairnsdale road, evidenced by a new type of road sign we saw there. It showed five arrows branching off a straight line, and illustrated that there were five sections of passing lanes between the two towns. In theory, this deters impatient and imprudent passing and thus reduce the incidence of head-on collisions. In practice…?

Also new to us was an electronic sign board that was lit up with a warning that there were bushfires in the area, with instructions to refer to the Vic Emergency App. All very well, but no help right now. I would have to consult with someone more mobile phone savvy than me to find out how to get that on my phone – one of the grandchildren perhaps?

In the meantime, we trundled on, figuring that if fire was an issue near the main highway, there would be other warnings of a non-mobile phone dependent nature.

Negotiating the main street of Bairnsdale, with its sets of traffic lights, we were behind a caravan that had no working brake lights. As we drew level with that outfit, at the last set of red lights, John beeped to get the driver’s attention, and I held up a sign I’d hastily written, saying “NO LIGHTS” in big letters. From the way the driver stared resolutely straight ahead, hunched over the steering wheel and ignoring us, I suspected he already knew this, and was continuing on, regardless.

The last stretch, between Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance, is an attractive one, with the crossing of the two rivers, the Nicholson and the Tambo, with their attendant small towns.

Tambo River

Then there was the long downhill run into Lakes Entrance, with its brilliant views, from high up, over the lake to the Entrance to the Gippsland Lakes system. It was a pity the driver had to concentrate on the curving road, rather than the view.

Coming down to Lakes Entrance – with the entrance channel straight ahead

Our destination of Eastern Beach Holiday Park was on the far side of the town, down – no prizes for guessing – Eastern Beach Road. Just before we reached that, pulled into a servo and refuelled – it was one with easy access for a rig our size. Paid $1.289 cpl for the diesel.

The caravan park had a dedicated check in lane – usually a sign of a good park. It was a Top Tourist as well as an NRMA one. After discount, I paid $252.90 for our five night stay on en-suite site. At the end of the stay, we felt it had definitely been worth that money.

The site we were allocated was the smallest of the eight such sites, but still adequate.

However, we had to park Bus nose in, and on the shadecloth that took the place of a slab. There was not quite enough room on the angled site to park beside this, without having the back of Bus, and the hitch, uncomfortably close to passing traffic. I did wonder if the man on Reception had sufficient visualization of his sites, because I’d told him, when booking earlier in the week, that Bus was a bit over seven metres long. Any one of the other sites would have been better for us – and they were not all occupied. Next time, I would ask for a more suitable one – as I am sure we would be  returning  here.

En suite sites at Eastern Beach

The ensuite bathroom was excellent. I rated it, along with the ones at Lightning Ridge and Kinka Beach, as the best we have encountered. It was roomy enough and with a wonderfully large shower recess, with glass door – and with a type of bench at one end to put toiletries on. Plentiful hot water too.

We were to find that the park had an interesting layout. At our end, the sites were conventionally laid out but all quite spacious. There was an amenity block and BBQ area close by. At the other end, the sites were arranged around a large central grassed area – and I mean large. This contained a playground, camp kitchen and amenities block. There were some cabins with private outlooks onto the Cunninghame Arm of the Lakes, which runs behind the park.

After setting up the camp and finding that there was an area beside Bus where Couey could be tethered on a good length rope, we all went for a walk to explore down Eastern Beach Road. This road continued on, past the park, across a bridge over the tidal Cunninghame Arm, to end by a park area that had a playground and BBQ’s. From there, a sandy wide foot track extended through the scrub to the sea and the Ninety Mile Beach.

A foot track between the park fence and Cunninghame Arm led back towards town and meant that those more energetic than us, could walk that way to town, or a circuit involving that and the beach.

It was a very attractive setting, overall.

I’d brought skinless franks with us, for tea, and a loaf of olive bread, which I warmed up in the electric frypan, to freshen it up. That made an easy meal. John’s sort of food!

We were both really tired. Maybe we were no longer used to travel? So it was an early night. Could hear the waves breaking on the beach – a lovely sound to fall asleep to.