Raymond meets Mary

Following the last post we had a couple more days at Raymond Island. We went on a couple of bike rides, got eaten by more mosquitos and saw plenty more koalas and other wildlife. We enjoyed a sunset walk / bike ride which was as pretty as a postcard. 

On the way home we took a slight detour between Paynesville and Bairnsdale - along the silt jetties, which is a narrow strip of land that separates the lakes and the Mitchell River that winds it's way into the lake system. This is the river that goes through Bairnsdale. 

Then it was home just in time to get ready for Christmas Day and all that it brings... and then on Boxing Day we packed up the caravan and Ethan and Darrin set off on December 27th for the 200 km drive to Maryborough.

The first couple of days in Maryborough we rode bikes around town looking at the local landmarks - mostly grand old buildings from the gold rush days. The Post Office sits in the middle with the courthouse on its left and Town Hall on its right, all majestic in their white render. 

The train station is as grand as it can get for a relatively small country town. As Mark Twain said, it's a railway station with a town attached. 

Our caravan site at Maryborough Caravan Park was one of their best - near the lake. Over a small grassy knoll we got lake views, the perfect place for lake sunsets. 

From here is was a short walk or ride into town, via either the grand old grandstand in Princes Park or the Art Deco swimming pool - depending on whether one goes around the lake clockwise or anticlockwise.

Some other notable buildings in town were the old Bull and Mouth hotel and the former fire station. Personally I liked the fire station, it's my favourite in town. 

On the edge of town is the Bristol Hill miner's memorial tower - the tower has seen better days but the view is nice, with the train station tower standing out, as well as an old industrial chimney which is now part of the Kmart store! 

Finally for this post, the railway near us has goods trains a couple of times a day (or night) and it's the parking spot for one of the VLine passenger trains each night.

The next blog will be about some special visitors we had and also some of the other smaller towns in the area including Newstead, Talbot and Avoca. All a short distance from our base here in Maryborough.

Raymond Island

A matter of days until Christmas, school is done for the year, summer holidays beckon. We decided to escape before Christmas and squeeze in a week at Raymond Island, in the middle of the Gippsland Lakes. J and the kids came down and D followed a couple of days later, taking the train to Bairnsdale. 

Raymond Island is just a 2 minute ferry ride from Paynesville. Visitors get the privilege of paying $13 to use the ferry... making it one of the most expensive in the country per minute or metres travelled! 

We hired a cottage metres from the water and a short walk from the ferry. We'd had this booked for Sept 2020 and had to postpone it 12 months due to COVID, then of course had to change it again in Sept 2021. We finally made it!

Raymond Island is well known for it's wildlife and much of our time here was looking for and enjoying the local marsupials, reptiles, birds and the one that had the biggest impact on our stay - the mosquitos! They are big, plentiful and hungry. 

Some local signs on Raymond Island!

A local stall on Centre Road

13 ducklings out with mum and dad

Kangaroos are often seen in people's gardens. Koalas also live among the 'suburbs' of the island. One resident koala appeared regularly in the tree outside our house, just across the street! So we not only enjoyed the birdlife from the comfort of the lounge suite, but also kangaroos and koalas. 

Some teenage swans!

These two were squabbling, until mum stepped in to break it up!

We brought the bikes and enjoyed cycling around the island, down some sandy tracks and into the remoter parts of the island. There we encountered more bird life, including some beautiful black cockatoos. They, along with their smaller and more colourful relatives enjoy the bottle brush flowers which are huge! 

On Sunday afternoon a storm hit us, we could see it rolling in as it enveloped us with thunder, lightning and rain. This left many of the local roads covered in large puddles. One of these on the road near Gravelly Point would swallow a small car, as we discovered as we encountered it for the first time! The car got quite muddy. 

Today we spent some of the grandparents Christmas money from 2020 and chartered a yacht (and it's capable skipper, Doug) to sail around the lakes. The kids became the crew, managing the sails and steering the craft. It was a great few hours which included a stop to walk over the dunes to the Ninety Mile Beach.

We also sailed close to an island with nesting swans and another which has pelican nests and more pelicans than we'd ever seen in the one place!

a swan on a nest

Fortunately the ferry is free to walk on or take your bike, so that is how we travelled over to Paynesville when we needed to.