Colac stop over

Think Linda was shaking a little in Burnley Tunnel

After escaping from Melbourne we headed south on the Princes Highway towards Portland.  We decided to stay two nights at Lake Colac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Colac  so we could take a day out to tour the area and take in some of the local attractions and scenery.

Nice boat ramp but no lake

The free camp at Lake Colac is right on the shore of the lake with water views, skiing and fishing – IF the lake had any water in it – unfortunately it was dry for the second time in 175 years!

No water - but nice

Still a nice spot with grass, flushing dunnies, town water available and a view over the dry lake bed towards the large country town of Colac.

On top of old smoky

Lake Colac and lots of other nearby lakes were created by volcanic activity and you can still see the remnants of inactive volcano’s and the lush red-soil farmland and dairy farms.

Triplet Falls

We drove up into the temperate rainforests of the Otway Ranges. With massive tree ferns, waterfalls and Australian beech forests – this is a beautiful spot. We did a short walk to Triplet Falls through the rainforest (surprisingly it was raining in the rainforest) and headed out to the Otway Flyway were the world’s longest treetop walk has been built.

Gloomy and green

Plan was to have some lunch and for me to do the walk while Linda relaxed in the café.  After finding out it was 600M walk to the start of the 600M treetop walk and my knee already giving me some grief from the waterfall walk I decided to put the walk off till “next time”.  Lucky I am not a horse – would have been put down by now!

Our Victorian Visits

As we travelled south towards Melbourne we had the opportunity to catch up with friends we had met travelling around Oz in our van and mates I had worked with for over 20 years.

Camp Blair Morwell

First stop was Steve and Carol's (and Roxy) place at Morwell just north of Melbourne.  We had met these guys last year camping at Gregory Downs in far north west QLD and then by coincidence/ plan at several other free camps as we travel around north QLD.

MKR - flattie chef

Over two nights of memorable dining – Steve’s famous seafood chowder and Kerry’s flathead fillets  we had a laugh, played ladder golf and let the girls beat us at a board game called Sequence (that’s our story and we’re sticking to it!).

a lunch of good looking guys!

Second stop was a quick lunch at Williamstown with some of the guy’s I had worked with for over 20 years. Some retired and some still working (someone has to pay the taxes!).  An hour wasn’t long enough but it was good to see the guys again and take a quick drive past the Williamstown Dockyard gates where I first visited as a young sailor in 1973 and many times after in my working life. Sad to hear that the Dockyard was likely to shut-down after serving the Navy since WW2 – so much history and current skills in jeopardy.  Hopefully they can find a project to keep it going.

Pre-dinner photo at E&J's

Next stop was Esther and Johns’s at Endeavor Hills near Dandenong. We had met John and Esther on our first trip around Oz in 2011-2012 up at Mataranka in the NT and had kept in contact ever sense. Despite Esther working and being very busy they found time to catch up, cook us a roast lamb dinner and take Linda out for a girls shopping outing to the Dandenong  Markets.

We head south towards Portland next week but are so pleased to have had the opportunity to catch up with new and old friends.  Hopefully we will see you “out there/or at our place” in WA - sometime in the future and it was great catching up!

Wallagaraugh River Retreat

Yep - uggies and beanies - its getting cold

A visit to Mallacoota Inlet was on my bucket list - so a stopover was mandatory as we travelled south into Victoria and the beautiful East Gipsland area. As it was the middle of the Victorian School Holidays we decided to camp at Wallagaraugh River Retreat Web site here which “strange as it may seem” is on the Wallagaraugh River which is one of two tannin coloured rivers flowing into Mallacoota Inlet.

Kerry out chasing bream

What a spot! – we camped on the bank overlooking the river just 30Mtrs from the boat ramp. With mullet jumping day and night, pelicans feeding all day this looked to be the Promised Land.

Nice bream on poppers!

Mallacoota is famous for big bream and flathead and the Wallagaraugh River delivered the goods. Lots of big golden bream on “walk the dog” poppers and big black flathead on both diving hard-bodies and plastics.

Happy flathead angler

Linda (AKA the Flathead Queen) was constantly pulling in flatties every midday fishing expedition and out fished me 3 to 1.

That's three!

Must have something to do with my expert guiding and lure selectionJ.

Mallacoota Wharf - wow!

The camp has no phone signal or internet so we gave the flatties and bream a day’s rest and drove the 65kms into Mallacoota township to do some shopping, stock up on fuel ,have lunch at the pub, do some sightseeing and catch-up on emails, facebook and missed calls.

Mallacoota Inlet looking back from entry

You can see why Mallacoota is so popular – huge expanses of protected inlet, sandy beaches and fish jumping on your hook!

After a week on the river - we leave with one more item on the bucket list “ticked off” and our freezer full of flathead fillets.