One Year to Give: Day Trips

School work was a bit 'light on' for a couple of days, as we undertook a couple of "excursions"!
Our first outing was up the 'hills' into the southern part of "Snowy Country". We had morning tea at Buchan, which was a very picturesque, 'olde-worldy' town, with the Buchan River meandering through. The type of place where, the 'local' waiting to be served at the takeaway shop, went behind the counter to serve us while the shop person finished conversing with another and we had to 'toot' the kids off the road, as they made their way home from school down the main street!

Picturesque valleys and lots of 'green'

After lots of driving through timber-edged roads, and climbing higher and higher, we took a 4wd track to see a lookout over a reportedly, impressive gorge, along the Snowy River. I don't think we saw another car the whole afternoon, we could only get 'glimpses' of mountains in the distance through the trees, the smoke from the "controlled" burns in the area started to funnell up the valley and we ended up here ...

at the end of the road!!

Well... the Parks and Wildlife lady did say, "Oh, you don't mind driving on gravel, do you?" !!
The Gippsland part of the state forrests are relatively dry, compared to others we've seen, and the locals say the Lake's area has missed out on much of the rain that the rest of the state has got.

We finally got to see it! The junction of the Snowy and Buchan Rivers

The Snowy was running fairly fast and there was a bit of white water where the Buchan River joined in. This is evidently a popular spot for canoeing, camping and swimming. However, I wouldn't have liked to have been doing either in this water!

The Entrance - from the Bass Strait to the lakes system

Lake's Entrance wharf area

Our second excursion was a lunch time cruise up the North Arm of the Lake's Entrance lakes to the Wyanga Winery. Great fun - wine (and soft drink) tasting, with a local commentary, from "Muz", the skipper of the boat, about the local area, community and industries. It was also a good chance to chat to a few other traveller's about what is good to see/experience in other places.