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Published: October 23rd 2015
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Paynesville
My parents Christmas campsite - next to the boat ramp at Newlands Arm We left our campsite near Golden Beach fairly early knowing that we wanted to cover a fair bit of territory that day. It would be a particularly difficult day of driving as the winds were particularly strong and gusty.
Because the Gippsland Lakes is Australia's largest inland waterway (measuring approximately 600 square kilometres), it was important for Georgi to see the various parts of the Lakes and to gain a full understanding of the geography of the lakes and rivers, particularly as I had spent my earlier life here.
The Gippsland Lakes (in order of size) are:
* Lake Wellington
* Lake Victoria
* Lake King
* Lake Reeve
* Lake Tyers
* Lake Coleman
The rivers that flow in to the Gippsland Lakes are:
* Latrobe
* Thomson
* Avon
* Perry
* Mitchell
* Nicholson
* Tambo
The Latrobe, Thomson, Avon and Perry rivers flow in to Lake Wellington and the Mitchell, Nicholson and Tambo rivers flow in to Lake King.
Our first port of call was Seacombe on McLennans Strait, a small holiday village on the river that
Lakes Entrance
The view from Kalimna Lookout joins Lakes Wellington and Victoria. Seacombe was a small detour off the road to Loch Sport. Loch Sport is the main holiday village on Lake Victoria that has access to both the Gippsland Lakes and the Ninety Mile Beach. The number of houses at Loch Sport have grown substantially since my last visit, however the shopping services provided at Loch Sport don't appear to have changed much. We looked for quite a while for the one bakery in town and finally found it and were able to buy some bread rolls for lunch.
After driving through Longford and having a quick look at the Swing Bridge in Sale we refuelled the bus and stopped for a quick lunch at Lake Guyatt.
We still had some Gippsland Lakes sites to see, so we pushed on, driving the back roads to Paynesville, a town that has grown significantly since the days when I first went there with my parents. Each Christmas we would camp for four weeks on the foreshore at Paynesville, with the boat moored on the beach below the seawall. It was a great time to spend holidays on the Lakes with family and friends. But that is
such a long time ago now. And Paynesville has grown - it has residential canals (for the retired from Melbourne), trendy cafes and so many boats (and yachts) that you would think they were either free to buy or cheap to run. The bakery in Paynesville was trying to close so we ordered take-away coffee and set sail for Lakes Entrance.
We cruised past the Mitchell River silt jetties and headed east, crossing the Nicholson and Tambo rivers before reaching Kalimna where we stopped to take photos of the Lakes from the cliffs.
After the photos at Kalimna, we talked about the history of Lakes Entrance and drove down the hill into the town. We decided not to stay in Lakes Entrance, however and drove on and up towards Lake Tyers where we stopped overnight at a roadside camp called Burnt Bridge Road.
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