Thursday: Lakes Entrance to South Durras – 476km
Reasonably easy drive today compared to yesterday. We were fortunate enough to have a good nights sleep at the Hostel at Lakes Entrance, so the drive to Durras was no where near as tiresome as the drive from Port Campbell to Lakes Entrance yesterday.
We left at a good hour of the morning, around 9.30 we were on the road after a quick stop to get some supplies from the local Safeway, and pose for our boy band photo at the lookout overlooking Lakes Entrance. It was an overcast morning but still with a lot of heat coming through. We discovered yesterday that our inverter that we used to power the laptop finally died on us. So, the laptop music was out of action for the day, instead we relied on the 2 MP3 players and CD collection to get us through to Durras.
The trip today was quite uneventful. But breathed a sigh of relief when we finally crossed over into the NSW border.
We stopped for Lunch at the quiet town of Eden, each having a pie and Caramel Slice (Pete and Ross) or Vanilla slice (if you were Noor). After this it was back on the road again for the final leg of the Journey. We passed through Bega seeing the cheese factory and plenty of cows.
We stopped in Batemans Bay for more supplies then a quick detour to Big Bit Lookout to get our bearings. It was very hazy but made the mountains look interesting. Snapped a few photos, then it was back in the car to Pete’s caravan in South Durras.
Once there, it was a home away from home. We got setup relatively quickly and spent a good portion of the afternoon relaxing after such a busy week. A quick walk over to the beach and up to where the lake meets the sea was required to lift the spirits. It wasn’t long till it felt like we were part of a Man vs Wild episode as we were bombarded with nature. Plenty of roos, rabbits and birds around to raise the killer instinct, however we had already settled on some prime rump steak.
Unfortunately there was a total fire ban so the firebecue was out of action for our 500g thick cut slabs of tender beef. We cracked out the electric bbq and frypan as an alternative to a proper bbq whilst Ross made up a fantastic seasoning out of Pete’s Dads extensive spice collection. Using the electric bbq made things interesting as we quickly learned that the caravan was limited to how much power could be drawn upon… after tripping the safety switch a few times.
Once we had finished eating like kings, the possums came out to clean the plates and we spent some time trying to get a good photo. It was nice not to be rushing dinner and sleep. Many episodes of Arrested Development were watched till we decided to have a look at the beach at night after hearing the crashing of the waves get louder. The clouds had begun to clear and the stars were shining bright enough to see the band of the Milky Way. The whitewash of the waves was lighting up from the phosphorescent in the water and kicking the sand would make it sparkle.
