Lakes Entrance
12 June 2025 / Story: Anda Clayton, Rose Smith; Photos: Anda Clayton, Rose Smith
Lakes Entrance
27 – 30 May, 2025
Day 1: What is that sound? It’s cold, it’s dark and it's only 4:00am. For Bill, Jan and Leann .. their alarms are ringing. A cascade of beeping followed with Rose & Geoff, Anda and Brian, Chris & Ron all making a very early start to get to the Heritage Bakery for our 7:00am departure to Lakes Entrance. A few keen members arrived even earlier to have breakfast at the bakery. Chris and Dace were the lucky ones as we didn’t meet them until arriving in Narooma about 9:00am. We drove through a thick dust storm on this section of the run, with most of us lamenting the state of our cars. After a brief stop, and with the whole group together, we set off to Tathra (thankfully no more dust) for morning tea at a lovely find of Rose's, The Wild Orchid Cafe - a great vibe, delicious food and a spot to bask in the sun.
After a 2 hour drive down the road, we arrived at our lunch stop in Cann River. For those of us who didn't buy takeaway lunches in Tathra, we visited the local bakery and opted to enjoy lunch in the park, despite the wind and cold! Actually, there wasn’t really anywhere else to eat, except in our cars. Cann River was resplendent with lots of autumn colour. Leann commented that we don't need to travel to Japan with such a spectacular display right here.
Rain clouds gathered as we drove off - as the rain persisted, Brian even decided to slow down very briefly to put the roof up! OMG, the rain must've looked serious! Our arrival time at Lakes Entrance at 3:15pm was pretty well spot on...good planning Rose. After checking into The Central Hotel and having a quick rest, we met at 5:00pm for ‘Fivesies’ in front of an open fireplace at the hotel. Fortunately, it was right next door to our accommodation.
A few wines in front of the fire, followed by a delicious dinner (the slow cooked brisket was the favourite) and convivial conversation finished a most enjoyable day. A long drive of close to 500km from Milton, but with breaks it proved doable. I can imagine that Bill, Jan and Leann are mighty weary tonight with their additional drives from Wollongong! A cold, wet and windy day predicted for tomorrow ....will the planned cruise eventuate?
Lakes Entrance - Day 2:
Much less driving and an appreciated late start and relaxed pace today. A strong south westerly wind was blowing in from the Antarctic, so it was not a nice day to be wandering around outside. Fortunately, the cold temperature and the occasional shower failed to spoil our plans for today.
Geoff led us on a slow (thanks to an SUV ahead of us) but scenic drive following the Tambo River to our morning tea stop in Bruthen, a pretty village. We stopped at Tambo Valley Honey for coffee and cake...Dace recommended the Russian Honey cake. We should have shared our choices as the servings were ginormous and delicious! Jan took her leftovers to go… I’m sure Bill helped to finish off this mountain of cake for supper. A cute gift shop (yes, some purchases were made - honey of course) and a working beehive caught our attentions for a while
Bellies full, we proceeded on a scenic route, this time at a cracking pace, to Metung, a pretty village popular with sailing boat enthusiasts....boats everywhere! Here a local from Metung, driving a gold NB, spotted our convoy driving towards him and decided to back up and check us out! By the end of our conversation, I think we talked him into joining the Victorian club. He was most interested in viewing Chris's NB and the fellas swapped notes about the cars.
It was planned to have a couple of hours wandering around Metung, but after a short stroll along the wharf in the wind we decided to take a scenic drive to Nungurner Foreshore Reserve - another picture-perfect spot sheltered from the wind. Rose had chatted to a Park Ranger in Bruthen who recommended this spot.
Before we knew it, but not before the runs 1st and only ‘wrong turn’, thanks Google, it was time to head back to Lakes Entrance in time for our afternoon cruise.
Despite the wind, cold and drizzle, we fortunately achieved the minimum of 10 customers for the cruise to go ahead, although the route was reduced by thirty minutes to 2 hours. We boarded Peel's Thunderbird cruiseboat and were spoilt for choice regarding seating! We applauded Rose, she'd done it again and had managed to organise a private cabin just for us!
We spent 2 hours exploring the vast waterways of the Gippsland Lakes as we motored past Flannagan Is, Fraser Is, Bancroft Bay - here we viewed Metung, where we had driven a few hours earlier from the water. The boat got up close to a large flock of pelicans and seagulls....the waterways were teaming with birdlife. We approached the Entrance. Seas were up and it would've been a difficult manoeuvre today attempting to navigate the Entrance. Close by were seals - many on the rocks, some in the water. A very worthwhile cruise, despite today's weather.
Fivesies at the hotel bar in front of a very welcome fire, followed by a Vietnamese dinner finished another full and enjoyable day.
Lakes Entrance-Day 3:
A lovely sunny, and slightly warmer day today, with more cars letting their hair, whoops, tops down.
Today we had an adventure with a difference. We started with a 1hr scenic drive, fortunately with no annoying traffic in our way to Paynesville, a lovely town on the water's edge, evidently popular with the boaties .... sailing boats everywhere!
Most of us found coffee and, yes, more cake indoors at Ginnies Place on the mainland. Anda and Brian decided to brave the weather and caught the ferry straight across to Raymond Island to have coffee outdoors at The Two Has Beans coffee van – a new addition on the Island. We all left our cars behind and walked onto the ferry for the five-minute trip across the water …. saving a few pennies, as pedestrians travel for free.
Raymond Island is renowned for its large koala population. We spotted our first one near the terminal on disembarking. Geoff decided he didn’t need to look for any more. Brian set up camp to get footage with his drone, but the wind restricted the height of the flights. Being a sailor, he got to watch the yachts sail as it was competition day… not a bad alternative. We walked the Koala trail and immediately spotted numerous koalas, fluffballs curled up high up in the trees, being mindful of not to get a crick in the neck! We all took turns in spotting a koala with many needing a bit of help to spot ‘their’ koala. It’s surprising how well camouflaged they can be. The trail extended for approximately 2kms, then we headed into the reserve and walked to the other side of the island. It was invigorating being able to walk amongst nature in the sunshine seeing these animals in their natural environment.
After having worked up an appetite we headed to lunch at Three Double8 Zero where we all enjoyed our meals very much! Brian still talks about his superb coconut prawn curry...I'm sure he was tempted to licked his plate… maybe he did!
Lunch over, we took another scenic route back to Lakes Entrance. Part of this was the reverse of yesterday’s route but seemed so different, particularly with no snail-paced Kia in our way.
Fivesies at the pub, again, followed by a Chinese meal at the local RSL, and we were all ready for bed after an active day koala spotting, eating and zoom zooming along some great MX5 roads
Lakes Entrance run - Day 4:
We were homeward bound to various corners of the South-East coast this morning....Eurobodalla, Shoalhaven, Illawarra and Sydney.
As he was already familiar with the infamous Mt Darragh Rd, Brian offered to lead the run today, with Geoff & Rose acting as Tail end Charlie, for a change of pace.
6 cars departed Lakes Entrance bright and "early" (8:30am). We made our way to Cann River through Orbost for a speedy refuel/ comfort stop. Onwards to Bombala for a late morning tea at our well known Greek cafe, the Cosmo Cafe.
Here we bid our farewells to Bill & Jan, Leann and Ron & Chris, who were heading home via Canberra. The rest of us headed up the twisty, MX5 friendly Mt Darragh Rd and then along Myrtle Mountain Rd to Candello, where we bid our goodbyes to Chris & Dace. Then there were two... Geoff & Rose followed Brian & Anda to Bega along Candelo-Bega Rd via Kameruka....who remembers Kameruka cheese? Brian & I grew up on it, showing our age. These roads were just magic, great roads and zero traffic!
On to the Princes Highway, and then it was a matter of following our noses back home to the Shoalhaven. We had a dream run home, few cars, few trucks or caravans.
All in all, we drove 1,250 enjoyable kms during our 4-day adventure. We love our Zoom Zoom! Hopefully all of our run colleagues had a similar experience.
Thank you Rose for the tremendous amount of work you evidently put into organising this run. Everything went smoothly, our activities were most interesting and well planned, meal stops were excellent and our accommodation was comfortable (apart from our noisy showers). Even the weather co-operated with a lovely sunny day during our day walking and koala spotting on Raymond Island!
You can put this run on another year's calendar!
Story: Anda Clayton, Rose Smith
