this may well become one of the catch cries of our trip – at least we hope so. better to have a lot of great choices re where to stay than having to settle for a second-rate spot. it’s unfortunately likely this will happen at some point, too.
after leaving canberra we followed a familiar path, to cooma, but there we took a right instead of heading straight to thredbo.
as we passed through nimmitabel we saw this great old hotel, we thought it was worth a photo. the rest of the town was just as picturesque, shame we had just had coffee & cake at our favorite place in cooma (the hydro scheme museum, strangely enough, makes for a great stop for coffee) we did not stop at the local bakery or one of the organic coffee shops.
we followed the monaro highway towards cann river, which was also our plan a for an overnight stop. apparently there is a great free (!) campground.
the weather looked a bit dicey, though, and the rain did not clear up until well after cann river. that pretty much also ruled out our plan b, too: bush camping in the croajingolong national park. kris was not too unhappy about that outcome: the reviews of the campground were mostly positive but included mention of snakes and dingos running through the camp. might be a bit too wild. we’ll work our way up to it, i’m sure. as we travel further soon we’ll be calmly feeding snakes to dingos … or the other way round.
we also had to stop near bombala, apparently the platypus capital of australia (possibly the world), a statement we can neither confirm nor deny. platypus, a.k.a. the amazing beaver duck, are very shy, nocturnal and only leave barely a ripple on the surface at the best of times; the odds were not in our favour and we didn’t see any.
we got this instead, a lovely lizard. after that exciting stop we were back on our way towards plan c: camping at lakes entrance.
on the way there we took a little detour, a tourist drive off the princes highway. this is where the ‘legendary’ snowy river, coming from mt kosziozko, meets the sea, at marlo. who knew. the result looks more like a lake separated from the sea by a line of dunes but it was just pretty enough to warrant another change of schedule.
marlo had not featured in any of our plans but we liked the place and decided to stay for two nights.
beaches are not really overcrowded here. mind you, if you get in trouble in the water the surf life savers are not going to rush to your help either and you may end up like harold holt (we’ve been in caberra, you know).
the locals call this cape conran; natalie called it treasure beach.
this seastar was still alive and duly returned to the ocean so it could regrow it’s leg and live happily ever after.
shark eggs. not sure which shark they below to but it’s still exciting.
we have no idea what this is but there were many on the beach. treasure beach, see?
we then followed a little 4wd track to the yerung river gorge. amazing what you find off the beaten track. which led further discoveries when we continued towards melbourne and followed another sideroad: we first stumbled across a blueberry farm and bought a few baskets for kris (they didn’t last long) and the lady in the shop then directed us to a stonefruit farm. kris and nat said those were some of the best & ripest fruit they had eaten in a long time.
the typical gippsland vista. a bit like home, flat with the mountains in the back. only a little further to mebourne now.