Paynesville, Gippsland Lakes

I arrived back at Lakes Entrance on Thursday night to find Matt with his feet up in the cockpit drinking a beer. Wonder how often that was the picture in the five days I was away?! Matt assured me he’d missed me terribly and we went to the Pub for dinner to celebrate my return to the trip. Friday was a warm and very still day, and so while we were waiting for high tide in order to move out to another town, we took out the stand-up paddle boards. For only our second real attempt, I think we did pretty well – 3 hours paddling out around Bullock Island and down The Narrows and back. Neither of us fell off and we only had to sit down a couple of times when a boat with a big wake passed us.

About 5 pm, on high water, we motored out and further into the Gippsland Lakes. We were aiming for Paynesville, a cute little town off Lake King that we knew had docks with visitor berths. After negotiating some narrow sections with very shallow parts we made it to deeper water and were able to put the sails up – sailing for the first time in 9 days. Arriving at Paynesville, we pulled up at the Grassy Point Marina and found ourselves another 4 hour berth (although this time we were only to stay 4 days!)

The next day we took our bikes over to Raymond Island on the Raymond Island Ferry. Only 200 metres across the water, the ferry is the only way to access the island (apart from private boat). It runs every 20 minutes, and carries cars, motorbikes, bicycles and passengers, the latter two being free. Raymond Island is only 6 km by 2 km in size, and is most well known for its large koala population. We cycled around the island and spotted nine koalas. That mightn’t sound a lot, but these are wild koalas and on recent trips with my students to the Koala Conservation Centre on Phillip Island we were lucky to spot five koalas in an enclosure, and we had to pay for the privilege. So I was pretty chuffed to see these guys in the wild and we enjoyed getting some good photos. Here are 3 of our best.

Sunday saw us cycling out to Sunset Cove and Eagle Point. After our 2.5 hour ride and yesterday’s 3 hour ride, we felt we deserved a treat and so spent the afternoon in the Paynesville Wine Bar. Lovely place, lovely wine, lovely afternoon.

Monday was my birthday and what a fizzer of a day it was. Overcast, gloomy and alternating between rain and drizzle; we spent most of the day in the yacht, reading, napping and listening to music. Although we did find some free public showers with hot water, the highlight of our day! Neither of us were feeling all that great, fighting off colds, but we mustered the energy to head out to the Pub for dinner. Happy Birthday to me!

And what a difference a day makes. Tuesday dawned clear, dry and relatively sunny and we headed off on our bikes, past Eagle Point to check out the Mitchell River silt jetties. It was quite a pretty ride and we enjoyed being out exercising. On our way back we came upon an echidna crossing the road in front of us. Matt managed to get a couple of close-ups as he hurried away from us.

Back on the boat, I cooked up a spag bol sauce while Matt pulled the bikes apart and stowed them away. Then, after manoeuvering our way through the Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club’s weekly social race, we set off for Lakes Entrance and tied up to Flagstaff Jetty. Once again, Lakes Entrance welcomed us with a spectacular sunset.

After quickly making quesadillas for dinner with the pre-prepared spag bol sauce, we were early to bed, as we planned on exiting through the bar in the morning and undertaking the long journey to Eden. It would take us 25 hours and was to be our first time taking proper overnight shifts. More on that in the next update.

Thanks for reading!