An early start to the day. At least this time we’re not on the 6:45 ferry!
After final packup, we drive over to River heads, about 30mins south from Dawn’s place. Dawn drives herself so her car will be at the ferry terminal when she comes back in a couple of days.
While waiting for the 10:30 ferry, we get the tires down to 25PSI. Probably not enough for full on soft sand, but the right balance for the beach. I’ll drop them further if the need arises.
The Ferry here goes to two locations, the 45min trip to Kingfisher resort, or this shorter 30min crossing to Wanggoolba Creek. Sometimes, due to low tides this ferry get redirected to Kingfisher, but as it doesn’t really matter to our plans, I book to here as it’s something different.
The ferry is not completely full, and our trip over is pretty uneventful. It’s a lovely sunny warm day.
We birth at Wanggoolba Creek, which is further south than Kingfisher. Given this, I’ve planned to take the “Southern Lakes Scenic Drive” via Lake Birrabeen then onto the beach at Dili village and a short ~10km trip up the beach to Eurong.
We’re one of the first off the barge, and while we let a few other who seem in a rush to dive in front of us we hit the tracks straight away. The sand here is pretty soft so it’s a bit of a quick baptism of sand driving.
I’ve downloaded to a tablet the Google Maps for the whole Island, We’re following the suggest route towards Lake Birrabeen, this is mean to be almost as nice as Lake McKenzie, but nowhere near as popular or crowded as it’s a bit more out of the way.
We take a few turns, the signs don’t help too much, but soon Google has us going up some track that is chained off, that and it’s so overgrown, I can’t imagine a vehicle has been up there in years.
Hmmm, that didn’t work out too well. We refer back to the paper maps, while it’s hard to work out exactly where we are, it’s clear we shouldn’t have made that last turn. So we’ve been on the island about 15mins and we’re already backtracking……
After about an hour we arrive at Lake Birrabeen. There are a few cars here. Access to the lake is a little further than at McKenzie and not quite so easy. I saw a sign indicating more parking 400mt up, and looking at the beach, that seems to line up with the far end. I suggest to Justine they walk up the beach and I’ll drive up to the other end. Well 400m is longer than I expected, and this track down to the lake is even harder. So that didn’t work out too well. The lake is nice, but it’s not up to McKenzie standards. While Caitlin would love to go for a swim, no-one else is that keen. Certainly not to walk back to the car, get changed into swimmers and start the whole process off again.
We drive 400 back to the first carpark, as it has better facilities (tables) for some lunch. We’re chuffed that with the new fridge, so we have all this fresh cool food to eat. We’re less chuffed when we realise we have no plates, or cutlery! We do fortunately have some cups in the car. Damn, we knew we had the stuff at the accommodation, we didn’t think about being out and about. Doh! We’d normally have the Van!
We make the best of what we have, thanks to the 1000’s of napkins in the glove box and have some lunch.
We make our way past Lakes Benaroon and Boomanjin, but these really aren’t for swimming. At the latter we stop for a walk. A family that was already here points us towards one of the tables in the dingo fence off area. On one of the supports is this fair sized Python! Apparently it made their choice of tables rather simple! A quick walk down to the water’s edge. The water here is stained tea coloured with all the leaves, but still really nice.
We make our way on to the Dili Village and the East coast beach. Not long before we arrive, Caitlin and Justine spots a dingo in front of us in the bush. I must admit it takes me a few seconds before I make it out. It’s certainly not frighten of us. As we move on it comes down to the tracks and seems like it may follow us for a bit.
We make it to Dili Village, not what was expecting at all. I was thinking it might be like the settlements further north, but no. It seem like a government or school group campground with dorms and cabins.
Finally on the beach and it’s about 2pm. Fortunately, it only a quick 10-15km up the beach at a nice 80km/h. So we’re at the resort in no time. Justine checks in and we unload our car full of stuff to the 2nd floor apartment.
What a view though! Just what I was expecting. A fantastic view from the balcony of the pool with the beach and ocean not that far in the distance. For once it’s as good, maybe even nicer than the photos suggest.
Now that I’ve stopped driving and lugging all the stuff to the apartment, I need a bit of a rest, this cold is getting the better of me.
The kids go for a swim, but like normal, Caitlin sticks it out the longest. That and she finds some other girls to talk too.
Dinner in tonight, we might have dinner at the restaurant tomorrow.