Day 49 (March 20) - Waddy Point (Bairnsdale) to Mallacoota

Friday 20 March

Today was an early start at 6.30 🥱 to get back into Bairnsdale to have our caravan brakes looked at by 8am. While we have rarely gotten up this early, it was certainly worth it - it was such a beautiful sunrise.

Waddy point

As we drove Bek read a bit of Tower of Ho Ho wood. She did such a good job of using all the different voices.


We were just on time for 8am at the Jayco sales yard to then be told the service yard was just down the road a bit and around the corner. So we made our way there and spoke to the guy in charge. He did a few tests on our brakes and proceeded to tell us that only 1 of our 4 brakes was working properly. Greg stayed with him for a couple of hours, after which we'd gotten the brakes working better, but they could do with some more work down the track to get them working better.

Matt enjoying watching the caravans being moved around by a tractor

While the caravan brakes were being fixed I took the kids down to a nearby park. Then onto Kmart to get a few bits and pieces. On our way over to Kmart we walked pass an Aldi which had a huge line up waiting for the doors to be opened.

As we drove along we came across a sign that said fresh fruit so we pulled off and had a look. What a cutie little set up this older couple had. They had heaps of stuff. All freshly grown in there orchard. Yummo. We bought some peaches (yellow & white), plums, apples, eggs and some strawberry and rhubarb jam.

We drove on down towards Lake Entrance and had a photo

 but didn't stop in the town. We found a nice spot to stop and have lunch down by the mouth of the Snowy River.

 

After this we drove another 77kms to get down to Mallacoota. We listened to a bit of Just William along the way.

We hadn't necessarily intended to go into Mallacoota itself, because there were no free camps in town. But we felt we had to go in and stay in a caravan park to support the town. The scenery has changed heaps along this bit. So much devastation has happened through some of these bits of the country and it's quite a surreal feeling driving through it but it's amazing how much new growth there is already.

As we got closer to Mallacoota we saw some spots on the side of the road that were still smoldering. They are just from controlled burning off to get rid of some of the fallen down trees and logs. We went past one that was on someones property that was quite close to the road on the left hand side which we could all feel the heat from in the car. It was quite a tall fire but the farmer was close by and keeping a close watch.

We travelled another 30kms down another road towards Mallacoota and checked out a few caravan parks and decided to stay at Beachcomber Caravan Park for the night as there isn't any free camps down here.

We arrived and set up and then the kids went and enjoyed the swimming pool while I got some washing going and Greg did some jobs on the van.

-- Mim