Beaches, scenery and historic places in s/e Victoria

We were travelling through the south-eastern part of Victoria from Wilson's Promontory, and stopped at Port Welshpool. It’s a wee coastal town of 191 people, perched on a shallow inlet that protects if from the powerful waters of Bass Strait. Welshpool’s main claim to fame is its long and historic jetty.

The historic long jetty at Port Welshpool, Victoria

Port Welshpool is also an active fishing town and commercial port, with boats regularly bringing in the day’s catch. Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of day to see that.

Moving along, our next main town was Yarram a town of around 2,000 people. Yarram has been bought into the international limelight over the past few years because of its murals.

Beautiful mural in Yarram, Victoria

The murals are larger-than-life depictions of local activities and personalities painted by Heesco Khosnaran, a renowned silo and street artist. The one in the photo above represents local opera singer Ada Crossley who became internationally famous in the 1790’s.

We found the art to be stunning, with its rich colours and stories, and Yarram to be a pretty town, with well-maintained historic architecture, and a wonderful vibrancy.

Yarram is also known as the town giving main access to our next stop, the Tarra-Bulga National Park.

Beautiful bush views on a narrow and curvy road in Tarra-Bulga National Park, Victoria

The road into and inside the Park was very narrow, winding, and dangerous, but the scenery was wonderful showing mountain-ash trees, giant tree ferns, and river gullies along most of the route.

Thankful that there was very little oncoming traffic, we stopped at a picnic spot for lunch. After taking a few relaxing moments to listen to the birdlife and the nearby bubbling stream, we drove on, enjoying the beautiful scenic drive.

View of the Strzelecki Ranges, Victoria

Our route took us alongside the Strzelecki Ranges, named for the Polish explorer who led an expedition through these mountains around 1840. While part of the range is now farmland, the eastern end where we were travelling, still showed its pretty green cloak of forest.

Before long, we arrived in Bairnsdale. We admired some of the historic buildings there, then drove on to Lakes Entrance, where we stayed for the next few nights.

Boats of the fishing fleet in Lakes Entrance

Lakes Entrance is a small coastal town of around 4,800 people in eastern Victoria. It has a large fishing fleet that operates in the area and so has become known for its seafood.

It is also known as the gateway to 400 square kilometres of inland waterways called the Gippsland Lakes, Australia's largest inland network of waterways.

Leigh’s Mum and Dad honeymooned at Lakes Entrance many years ago, and Leigh visited it several times while she lived in Australia.

Windy crossing the footbridge to 90-Mile Beach, Lakes Entrance, Victoria

At its edge, is Ninety Mile Beach where the Gippsland Lakes meet the Southern Ocean. There is a footbridge from Lakes Entrance over a waterway, to Ninety Mile Beach. However, the weather system threw rain and huge wind gusts at Lakes Entrance while we were there, making a day at the beach impossible.

So, on our last day there, we parked nearby and walked across the windy footbridge for a look at the beach.

Windy 90-Mile Beach, Lakes Entrance, Victoria

But what should have been a 90-mile-long stretch of pristine golden sand, had become a cauldron of flying and stinging sand, reminiscent of a sandblasting machine. The wind dropped just long enough to take a photo, but after 5-minutes, we were back in the van out of the wind, and moving on to our next destination.

On the way, we went through several small towns like Nowra Nowra, Toastaree, Wombat Creek, and Orbost.

Historic trestle bridge near Orbost, Victoria

Just coming into Orbost, we passed a wooden trestle structure that we learned later, is the historic Stony River Railway Bridge. Built in 1915, the rail ran from Bairnsdale to Orbost across the Snowy River floodplain, using many trestle bridges such as the one at Stony River.

A couple of interesting driving hours later, we arrived at our destination, which was Mallacoota, in the Croajingolong National Park, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

Mallacoota is a small isolated town (pop 1,063), in the centre of the National Park.

The van on levellers at Mallacoota camp, Croajingolong National Park (UNESCO), Victoria

We stayed at a campground that had us close to the edge of Mallacoota Inlet, with a great view of the water and its birdlife. Unfortunately, the land slopped forward and we could not get the van level enough for our water-pump and other essentials to work properly. But, after striking up a conversation with the neighbours, Marg secured a set of levellers to put under the wheels during the length of our stay. What nice neighbours.

Mallacoota offers some great walks through the Park and we wasted no time setting out on one.

Estuary views at Croajingolong National Park (UNESCO), Victoria

But walking along the edge of the estuary we saw a sign that said “a snake has been spotted here”, so we changed our direction and went over a ridge instead of along the base of it where the snake was. There were fabulous views from the top of the ridge, but it made us more “snake conscious” for all of our walks there.

The next day we did another much longer walk, but we didn’t intend it to be as long as it was – we almost got trapped.

We started out on the Shady Gully track which ended at the main highway. Not wanting to walk on the highway with no footpaths, we crossed the road to do the Coastal Walk back to town.

Marg on the Tasman coast at Croajingolong National Park (UNESCO), Victoria 

After 3 or so kms, we finally emerged from the bush at the coast of the Tasman Sea. It was spectacular.

Then we walked toward town along the beach, dodging the incoming tide, crossing a shallow creek, and climbing over some rocks.

On the other side of the rocks where we expected to find steps to take us above the beach, we found the beach almost covered with seething waves. Looking behind, we found the same thing – the incoming tide had almost obliterated the beach!

Eventually we struggled back over the rocks and watery beach, walked the 3 km back the way we came, and finally reached town via the highway – all up around 12.25 km and very tired feet.

Character pelican at Croajingolong National Park (UNESCO), Victoria

The next day was a quiet “at-home” day where we caught up on clothes washing, the blog etc, and were highly entertained by the antics of a cluster of pelicans. The largest of these large birds, had a great time feeding in the estuary, and we had a pretty close up view of him. It was wonderful.

Then we walked around the tiny town of Mallacoota, which took us about 10-minutes, and bought some great bread at the local bakery. On the way, we were delighted by the wildlife.

Kangaroo in Croajingolong National Park (UNESCO), Victoria

Particularly, a large kangaroo which just hopped out of the bush in front of us. We were all so startled - us and the kangaroo – that we stood there staring at each other. Finding that we were not a threat, he posed for a photo then began nibbling the grass, as we cautiously walked behind him and carried on our walk. Mallacoota and the National Park were great and we really enjoyed out stay there. We move on tomorrow, but that’s in our next blog.

This is part of a wider blog on our travels around south-eastern Australia, that began in Melbourne, Victoria