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Lakes Entrance & Mallacoota Victoria Part 2

April 27th 2010 06:07

Ok so I last left you as we left the Stormbird Cruise at Lakes Entrance, it was about 4pm at this stage and our next step was supposed to be finding a spot to camp for the night. So we scooted down to the information centre to get some information on the camping sites available around the Lakes Entrance district.

I have to say that the Information centre at Lakes Entrance is fabulous, and the staff are wonderful. The staff member spent some time over a map pointing out some free camping spots and describing how to get to some of them. But unfortunately it was here that the housemate got a hankering for a tiki tour, all the way to the tip of Victoria along the coast. Again I refer back to his tendency to make a five minute trip to the hardware store an hour long drive to one much further away. So after some discussions with the Information center bloke we were on our way to Mallacoota.

The trip to Mallacoota took a little over 2 hours, it was a lovely drive along the Princes Hwy and we didnt encounter any traffic issues at all. And the GiPiS was good enough to make sure we got the right turn off to Mallacoota. Any one checking our route will notice that it wasnt quite a coastal trip, but the information guy said that you can only go so far along the coast anyway and as we had a camping trailer in tow we decided to go the main route. Not that I feel robbed of any views, it was a spectacular trip, even though I was getting a little grumpy by the end of the drive.

In arriving at Mallacoota I was quite amazed at how busy it was, we drove down to the water to find a camping site absolutely bursting at the seams. I took a few photos and looked about the place then we decided to start the drive back to Lakes Entrance. We did consider staying in Mallacoota the night, but then thought of the long trip back home the following day and changed our minds pretty quickly. So although we didnt stay long, its nice to say that we have been to there.

We decided not to have dinner before we left but that we would stop somewhere and have dinner on the way or when we arrived at our camping site for the night. We began to get a bit puckish on our way back just before Mount Raymond, so we headed down the lookout road Tower Road. I am so glad we made that decision, we managed to set up the table and have dinner with a setting sun over a beautiful landscape. Of everything we saw that weekend, that setting sun made the trip worthwhile.

View from Mount Raymond

After our dinner we headed off down back towards Lakes Entrance (the housemate suggested staying where we had dinner, but I was not keen to sleep under a radio tower). Our destination for the night was a free Victorian Parks Campsite down a road off Lake Tyers Road. Now when I say a road I actually mean a bumpy track (remember the bumpy bit for later on) and Lake Tyers Road is a dirt road. The GiPiS was fantastic in finding both roads although our turn off road was not named on the map, but it was shown, and it even knew they were dirt tracks (FYI most of the turn offs to the right down Lake Tyers Road had camping spots). The drive down our turn off track was a fun trip, pottering along hoping nobody would be coming the other way in the dark as it was a single lane road, and we had the odd kangaroo bound across the track just to remind us we were going deep into the bush.

We didnt reach the camping spot until after 9pm and it was dark, but we could see it had quite a few visitors already set up for the night, but once nice gentleman got up with his torch and waved us through to an empty spot next to them which I thought was fantastic!!. We didnt stay up that night as we were both pretty tired so we crawled into the camping van and fell asleep pretty much straight away.

Waking up the next morning we saw how beautiful the area was and how close the water was, unfortunately as the area didnt have any toilets and all the trees were barren of leaves we had to make a dash back out to the road and the nearest rest spot. The housemate was fine, he found a tree to stand behind, but I wasnt going to take the risk of someone spotting me doing a quick pit stop in the bush. So we packed up quickly and went on our way this is where the bumpy track came back to haunt me. However we made it safely to Nowa Nowa, where I can tell you the local service station has very clean toilets!

Swans

After our pit stop we carried onto Lakes Entrance to have a bbq breakfast down near the water and took time out to feed the swans and seagulls our left over bread. Everything was fine until there were a few too many swans and I felt a little intimidated, I am a shorty and the Swans came up to my chin so I was a little worried they would take out my nose if I didnt feed them, but they were well behaved and once they realised I was out of bread they went off on their merry way to the next person with food for them.

After breakfast we started the journey home, and this is where we will leave the trip, nothing interesting happened on the way home (except my struggle to keep my eyes open). But overall I would have to say that I had a most fantastic birthday weekend!!

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Posted By: Vixy - Category: Aussie Sightseeing

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Lakes Entrance & Mallacoota Victoria Part 1

April 20th 2010 04:38

Ok, so just to explain the We in my blogs, I am a 39 year old (eeek not sure how that crept up on me) Female and am not a native Australian but have embraced Australia as my home. The other part of the We is my Housemate who is in his late 20s and he is an Australian born and bred in Victoria. We have been housemates now for a few years, friends for longer than that and we like to go camping and touristing (yes that is my own word) together because we both want to see the sights of Australia and doing the camping and touristy stuff is not as much fun alone. Besides who else is going to kill the bugs and spiders for me!! Although it is not always sweetness and light (we fight like cats and dogs, or a married couple at times), we always come away with some good memories from our trips.

So on my 39th birthday weekend this year we decided to go to Lakes Entrance. I should mention that my birthday falls around Australia Day so I always take my birthday off work and any extra days it takes to make an extra long weekend for myself. I had heard of Lakes Entrance and decided that it would be nice to see the views other people were raving about. After a bit of research I decided our trip would centre on a lunchtime cruise on the Saturday.

So on the Friday before Australia day we set off on our trip to Lakes Entrance, going via Seaspray, now for those who are savvy about Victoria you will realise that going via Seaspray is not exactly a direct route, but then again my housemate is the king of going on tiki tours whenever we go anywhere. Even going to our local hardware store five minutes away can end up in a drive to the hardware store an hour away just because he feels like a bit of a drive.

Nothing exciting happened on the drive to Seaspray, its a nice enough drive through the countryside and unlike most of our other trips, at least we didnt have to negotiate going through the city. The highlight of the trip for my housemate was discovering Ford Road, which we did a bit of reversing back to so that he could take a photo of the sign. I also got to go through all these places I normally hear of when listening to the Vline train announcements at Spencer street, Moe, Traralgon, I did see a sign for Mirboo North but we decided Seaspray was enough of a detour without going to a town just because I recognised the name. At Seaspray we stopped long enough for a quick walk to the beach and a few photos and then continued on our merry little way towards Lakes Entrance.

We hadnt decided on where we would stay (this is not uncommon for our trips either), so when we hit Bairnsdale we thought we would detour to Paynesville to see if there were any good camping spots down that way. To keep a story short, the Public Loos in Paynesville are clean and nice to use, but there are no camping sites in Paynesville except for caravan parks, so with it being earlyish we decided to make our way to Lakes Entrance and see if we came across anywhere to stay on the way.

Coming over the bridge into Lakes Entrance I fully appreciated why it is a holiday destination of choice for so many, the view was spectacular of the seas entrance to the lakes (hence the name Lakes Entrance. It would have been lovely if we had been able to camp up on the hill for the night, but unfortunately, that wasnt possible so on we drove into Lakes Entrance and got ourselves a camping spot at Eastern Beach Tourist Park just on the other side of the town centre.

Lakes Entrance view from the look out

Eastern Beach was a nice enough spot, although they tried to tell us they were booked out and we were lucky there was a cancellation, yet there were a lot of empty spots around our camping site, in fact in a row of about 6 powered sites there were only ourselves and another couple a few spots down. They were very busy, no denying that as opposite our spots the unpowered area was covered in tents, but booked out, not unless they had a lot of cancellations. The amenities were nice and clean and the area was well lit so you felt safe, the only problem was we were next to a little waterway and there were people wondering up and down it all night fishing for some type of fishy animal, it might have been prawns or something.

The next morning we booked out and headed off to our cruise, the lady at the cruise office was wonderful and showed us where we could park the car and camping trailer. We had opted to go for the lunch time cruise onboard Peels Lake Cruises Stormbird for their Metung Cruise which departs at 11am daily. Its a four hour cruise with an hour cruising to Metung where you stop for a couple of hours and have lunch at the pub then take a cruise back to where you start.

Metung Pub, destination for Stormbird Cruise

The lunch wasnt anything special, but it was nice sitting out in the sun and watching the boats coming and going at the dock. We also had a bit of a walk around the mini town and had an ice cream (which was yummy) then sat and had a drink till the boat was ready to go again. The wonderful thing about this cruise going to Metung every day is that if you are in the middle of having a drink then you can take it back on the boat with you and the boat takes your dishes back to the pub again the next trip.

We were lucky to have James Peel as our captain for the day, having grown up in the area he was extremely informative about the history of Lakes Entrance and we were ultra impressed with his commentary throughout the trip.

Coming in Part 2 of our weekend trip to Lakes Entrance is our detour to Mallacoota (again, I refer you back to the housemates tendency for a tiki tour)

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Posted By: Vixy - Category: No Category

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Kryal Castle, Ballarat, Victoria

April 16th 2010 01:38

To get to Kryal Castle, coming from Melbourne, the castle is down a short road on the left about 8kms before you get to the turn off for Ballarat, so if you hit Ballarat, you have gone too far! But dont worry, the turn off is sign posted and you can see glimpses of the castle from the road so you shouldnt miss it.

I found this place on a trip to Adelaide, as we drove pass I got all excited that there was a castle, but it was an extremely hot day and we didnt really have time to stop and take a look, but I earmarked it as being a destination for a future trip. After having been to the castle I am glad we didnt stop that day, we would have needed to spend a few hours there to truly enjoy the visit.

We decided to make Ballarat our holiday destination for Melbourne Cup weekend, taking the Monday off work to enable a four day weekend. For those that dont know, the Melbourne Cup is a horse race that stops the nation and happens on the first Tuesday of November each year, and those lucky folk working in Melbourne, and most of Victoria get to have a Tuesday off work.

I hadnt spent any real time in Ballarat previously, it had been a drive through spot for when we were travelling elsewhere, so I didnt know an awful lot about it except that there was the Eureka Centre and of course once I spotted the Castle then I knew there was a Castle.

We took along the tents for this trip and stayed at the Eureka Stockade Caravan Park, a nice little caravan park next to the Eureka Stockade and a Park with and adventure playground for kiddies. it only had 6 tenting spots, the rest was for Caravans or there were the Cabins. It was a nice enough park, with clean and tidy amenities, not sure what the kitchen set up was like as we didnt use it. There pricing was reasonable too, they had off peak rates for that weekend. It was unfortunate that they didnt have their pool open for use, their website advertises that it can be used between November and March, but we were there for the first weekend in November so it wasnt quite ready for use. They also have a mini golf course, but it isnt anything flash.

We travelled up to Ballarat on the Friday afternoon picking up an additional little traveller that night in Horsham after we set up camp and were lucky enough to pitch our tents before a thunder storm rolled in. We are also lucky that our tents are very sturdy and withstood the rain, got to say I actually enjoyed going to sleep with the rain pattering down on the tent.

On Saturday after having a leisurely breakfast we headed off to Kryal Castle. When you come from the Ballarat side you need to go past the turn off then do a U turn and go back to the turn off, but this was an easy enough thing to do. The castle looked impressive driving up to it, and you even walk over a drawbridge to get over the moat surrounding the castle although the water looked dodgy.

The staff at Kryal are fantastic, the lady at the reception area was nice enough to let our little traveller in for the under 5 price even though she had turned 5. The rest of the staff were lovely and friendly, and more than willing to talk at length about their displays and the castle. The costumes were great, but it was a shame to see the girls wondering around with their dress half off and bikini tops on, but I guess it was a warm day, and I think they were on a break.

Although the night before was a thunderstorm, the day was hot and sticky, and we rued the fact that we didnt take enough water or food with us. There is a little shop where you can get something to eat and drink, but like all touristy places, it can get a bit expensive forking out for food and drink for a few hours.

You are pretty much left to your own devices to wonder around the castle and grounds, which is kind of nice, it meant we could go at our own pace, there are a few little videos and demonstrations at set times, and they are good enough to announce when they are going to start over the loud speakers. We missed the magic show, but the juggling show was fun, we had a few laughs and Custard (hope that was his name, it sounded like Custard anyway) who was a young man dressed up in a court jesters costume was entertaining and did a very good job at showing off his juggling skills.

There was a nice video about the history of the castle, narrated by the owner of the castle, it was quite informative, and while the film making is not up to Avatar standards, it was interesting to watch. It was even more interesting when we later bumped into the Owner and realised at that point how old the movie must have been as he is quite an elderly man now, but still quite a distinguished man, and looked very much the lord of the castle.

One of the other demonstrations was a wench being whipped (it was one of the bikini top girls, maybe she was being whipped for being out of costume). Have to say this was not the most exciting thing to happen that day, there were a few not so funny jokes and a lot of her fake screaming, which got annoying very fast. Apparently they do a hanging, but there wasnt enough staff working that day so they werent allowed to do it.

There was a row of rooms for you to wander through, and show all sorts of interesting artefacts from old fashioned medical equipment, model ships, ancient armoury and even a torture chamber. Be warned that the torture chamber may not be suitable for kiddies. There is also the interiors of an old fashioned church, and they even have the old church pews that prisoners had to sit in. There was even a bit of history about the convicts brought to Australia.

Now while the torture chamber is not for kiddies, there is a kiddies play room, as well as other rooms which had miniature scenes behind glass cases and when you push a button they light up and the puppets start moving about. They look like they need a little care and attention, but still entertained the little one for ages. You can also climb up a tower and visit sleeping beauty, but I wasnt very impressed by that display.

There was a wedding in the afternoon, no not part of the attractions, but an actual wedding held in the chapel, it was fun to see the costumed bridal party flow past, although would say that their guests struggled to understand the difference between gothic dress and medi-evil dress.

Kryal also comes with its own little maze, its easy enough to get around, but we did the toward the end of our day and I was feeling tired and about half way through I needed to pee so it became urgent to get out!, By the way the loos are clean and tidy enough.

So that is our trip to Kryal Castle, I am sure I have left stuff out, but overall I had a great trip, and I think I will go back again on a day where we dont have a little one to think about and on a day that is not so hot.

As for the rest of our Ballarat trip, it wasnt that exciting, we didnt do too much because of the weather and the additional little traveller, but again we will be heading back to see the sites of Ballarat and the surrounding area I have heard tale of a miniature village which I would love to see.

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