The name Lakes Entrance is of a place where there are many lakes very close to the shoreline. I imagine it’s quite a resort in summer. In winter there are some visitors, including us, and it’s not as warm (in contrast to the mountains) as we had hoped.

The journey here yesterday was a bit more exciting than we thought it would be. Although the general slope down from the mountains was more gentle than the climb on the other side we spent a lot of the time travelling through a gorge where the B500 was very windy and sometimes steep. It made for an interesting drive, but tiring as we kept going until about 2.00 p.m. before finding a flat spot to have lunch. By then we were very close to our destination, but did not want to arrive hungry.

First of all we checked out a hotel that offered ‘free’ camping, including power and water hookups, but it was closed on Tuesdays, sadly. So we drove to the next hotel that offered camping, only about 14 kms further. Far from free when you factor in that we had a meal at the pub, but still a quiet and safe place to spend the night. We woke up to a cold and sunny day. The meal, by the way, was excellent, but these days I often feel that the meals we buy in cafes and restaurants only provide food that is at the level of our home cooking. The desert, for example, was very much like Stephen’s winter fruit compote. Very nice, but not better than he makes.

We also decided that it was time for our holiday and booked into the cheapest option. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, but in this case we have a room in a motel on the esplanade next to the lake. Curiously it has a sort of camp kitchen in the courtyard and whilst our room was getting warm we had our lunch sitting in the sunshine in kitchen.

Before checking in we did some shopping, got a new gas cylinder as our other one ran out last night, and filled up with fuel. We are all ready to go, but feel tempted to stay another night here, especially as we’ve partly moved in. I took this photo before we moved in as I knew it wouldn’t look tidy for very long.