Sale, Victoria

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Our two weeks in Sale were most enjoyable. We had fun exploring the town area and around Lake Guyatt, Lake Guthridge and Botanic Gardens on our bikes, enjoying beautiful Springtime sunshine. We drove around the surrounding countryside attempting to learn some local history and score some more geocaching points – unfortunately gale–force winds made these activities very unpleasant. During our 2 weeks in Sale we experienced all kinds of weather. The Port of Sale is the western entrance to the Gippsland Lakes – the gateway to over 400 square kilometres of Victoria’s largest inland waterway. Early paddle steamers plied the 63 nautical miles through the waters of the Gippsland Lakes with regional produce bound for markets in Melbourne and beyond. The Port of Sale is located at the northern end of a man-made canal, completed in 1890, which connects into a network of natural waterways – connecting Sale to Lakes Entrance. Just imagine the engineering effort involved with that! Much of the work was done by hand with pick, shovel and wheelbarrow. Horse-drawn scoops and a dredge were also used. Another of those engineering wonders is the Swing Bridge at the junction of the Thomson and Latrobe Rivers. It is the oldest, surviving, intact Swing Bridge in Australia. This unique bridge was designed to swing open for shipping to and from the Port of Sale, allowing it to become a major inland port. It was built between 1880 and 1883. It is built from cast iron cylinders and fittings and wrought iron trusses, measures 61 metres long with a central swing span of 46 metres, and weighs 130 tonnes. One of the early bridge keepers was a woman who had no trouble in swinging the bridge, manually!! It has been fully restored by volunteers and is a regular tourist attraction. (Percy Grainger’s father, John designed it.)

We also enjoyed driving to surrounding areas of Bairnsdale, Heyfield, Maffra, Glenmaggie and 90 Mile Beach. The countryside is just so green, we can’t believe it.

It was time to move on and with the prospect of being relief caravan park managers in January at Weribee South we decided to start heading in that direction to make ourselves known to the managers there. Since there was no timetable to stick to, we took our time and stopped to see and do all sorts of things. Next installment of our travel tales will follow shortly. (Now that we have sorted a technical issue with our photo storage!) Remember to click on the "Additional photos below" button at the bottom of this page.

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Photos

Peter taking a break at Lake Guthridge.
Sale is well serviced with bicycle tracks and parklands.

The Swing Bridge is opened up several times a week as a tourist attraction.
Some people take advantage of getting a different perspective.

The Swing Bridge in operation.
The installation of this type of bridge made it possible for many ships to travel all the way to The Port of Sale.

The Port of Sale
Once upon a time this was a busy place full of merchant ships. Today its a peaceful place to relax.

90 Mile Beach
This is a fairly remote area but the nearby caravan park is HUGE, so plenty of people must swarm here in the warmer weather.

Cowwar Weir
How's this for a free camp site? Unfortunately we didn't stay here.

See where geocaching takes us.
In search of little treaures, we come to some amazing places that we otherwise would not know about.