Seaspray, Victoria

Ratings: CP *** Surroundings ****

Puddles left by the high tide along 90 Mile Beach where children were content to spend time playing on warmer days. We had two perfect days for exploring, swimming and welcoming 2016 before the weather deteriorated drastically.
Seaspray is a small coastal village with about 300 residents. It has a post office / general store which provides basic supplies, take-away but no fuel. The newly established and popular Surf Club offers a varied cuisine. In addition, a pizza van and a pancake, strawberries and ice cream van are semi-permanent fixtures on the lawns of the foreshore during holiday time. These are favourites with hungry holidaymakers who almost certainly outnumbered the locals over the New Year period!

Patterned shapes and colours gifted by the ocean as the tide went out.

Four days of gusty winds and rain forced us from our beach meanders to find alternative walks and shelter along the serene Merriman Creek.

Wheelie Good wood fired pizzas were delicious!

Lakes Entrance, Victoria

Ratings:  CP **  Surroundings ****

The Entrance in the distance is man made connecting the Gippsland Lakes to Bass Strait.  Lakes Entrance is primarily a fishing and tourist driven town.

Picturesque fishing boats in the port off loading their catches.

90 mile beach, one of the longest in the world, stretches as far as the eye can see while a tower used by life guards awaits the arrival of the post Christmas holiday crowds.

A treasure trove discovered in the small settlement of Nowa Nowa which used to be a timber town. This general store serves as a post office, petrol station, supply store and has a wonderful array of craft work, some locally made.

Idyllic Metung............waiting for a friend after fifteen years apart.

Mallacoota, Victoria

Ratings: CP ***** Surroundings *****

Morning light over Bottom Lake, Mallacoota...the view from our site.

Bottom Lake is home to a bird sanctuary. While flocks of water birds rose into the air and then settled on sandbars in a cacophony of song and beating wings, languid pelicans watched on.

Reflective images and silence in calm waters of the lake on a windless day.

White sands stretch north from Bastion Point to the inlet where the Tasman Sea and Bottom Lake meet.  Over a period of 10 years, a group comprised of  local organisations and individuals attempted to prevent the building of a large breakwater and boat ramp south of Bastion Point. They were concerned about the environmental impacts of the proposed construction but they lost their fight in December 2014.

Layers of colour emerge from the wet sand.. Mudstone, sandstone, silica and shales laid down over millions of years. Apparently most of these Ordovician rocks in Victoria are of deep water sedimentary origin and have been squeezed, exposed, baked, covered and eroded by currents and other environmental factors.

Eden, NSW

Ratings: CP ***** Surroundings *****

Mealtime for an egret as the tide rises in Lake Curalo...the view from our site. Eden has an interesting whaling history: the Thawa people of the Yuin Aboriginal nation were the original inhabitants of this area and had a special relationship with dolphins and whales, killer whales (Orca) in particular which were sacred and which they refused to kill. However the settlers exploited Aboriginal knowledge of whales, employing them in the whaling industry which began in this area around 1828. The Orca whales were used to trap humpbacks which entered Twofold Bay where they were harpooned and the Orcas were rewarded with humpback carcasses. Whaling was banned in Australia in 1979.

An solitary walk along the sweeping Aslings Beach returning from the Lake Curalo inlet.

Colours and reflections of the serene Merimbula River where we enjoyed coffee after a boardwalk.

The Pinnacles of Ben Boyd National Park. Surprisingly different to other pinnacles we've seen, this is a natural cliff formation of multi coloured sands and clays which were apparently deposited around 65 million years ago during the Tertiary geological period. The top of the white sediment marks the level of an ancient water table while the red colour is iron oxide.

Tathra, NSW

Ratings: CP **  Surroundings ****

Seafood at the harbour in beautiful Bermagui on our day visit there....

And a humpback whale breaches playfully as she journeys south with her calf to the plankton rich waters of Antarctica.

Soft rays of evening sun touch Tathra Wharf. It's the only one of its kind remaining on the New South Wales coast. The first wharf was built in the 1860s for the district's farmers who needed a place to export their wares and extended in the 1900s to include yards and watering troughs for stock. The district's soldiers departed from here to serve in the First World War.

Batemans Bay, NSW

Ratings:  CP **  Surroundings ***

Our first year anniversary of being on the road celebrated with a seafood lunch at The Boat Harbour situated across the waters.

Forested labyrinth of eucalypts and shadows with an under-story of Burrawang trees (a type of cycad) and palm ferns in the Murramarang National Park.

Look! Gnarled spotted gums allow for the growth of forest plants in their crevices and scars.

Semaphore and Purple Shore Crabs scurry for their meals at low tide in mangrove swamps.

Cullendulla Creek Nature Reserve where we discovered one of the largest stands of mangroves south of Sydney. Popping sounds permeate the silence at low tide as the mangrove roots breathe in oxygen.

Ulladulla, NSW

Ratings: CP *** Surroundings ***** (Whipbird in bush near CP)

Ulladulla, Aboriginal word meaning 'safe harbour', where many serene moments were spent watching fishing boats returning with their catch.

 Amber liquid seems to run against darkened rock. During a wet period 3 to 4 million years ago, extreme leaching produced Ferricrete, a hard reddish or brown sedimentary rock with high iron content producing this a colourful landscape.

A solitary pelican and I wait patiently for that fish to bite at Burrill Lake.

"One track for all", a unique spiritual experience walking a track at North Head which tells the story of the people who lived here 40,000 years ago up through the words and carvings of Noel Butler, an Indigenous elder and custodian of the customs and culture of the Budawang people of the Yuin Nation. This carving is just one of the many along the 2 kilometre track around the headland. The  stories are told up until present day and depict the erosion of the traditional way of life of the Aboriginal people in this area and their struggle for survival following the arrival of the settlers.

Each evening I watched a white bellied sea eagle soar over the entry to the harbour and swoop on its prey. On our final evening there, I was privileged to see this couple (female is the larger of the two) quietly observing their territory and perhaps protecting fledglings.