Day 3 – Mallacoota

I’m not sure if the driving took it out of me, or if I’m starting to catch the cold that Justine has, but it ended up being a very early night for me, so I’m up and outside before anyone else.

The local bakery is open from 5:30, so around 8, with everyone still in bed, I take a walk over.  Steak and Onion with a takeaway flat white thanks.   I probably shouldn’t have ordered the coffee, as it took ages to get the coffee so the pie was a pretty cold by the time I got to it.   While pretty good, I can only give it (3.5 / 5)

When everyone else is up, I walk back over to the bakery with the kids to get something sweet for later, and while it’s only 10, the place seems to have been emptied and there are no too many options left.

Around 11, we take a drive a few K’s to the south to a few beaches along the way.

We start with a full tour of the caravan park, as I’ve mentioned this takes all three sides of this headland in the river estuary we’re on.  The place is huge.  While these southern sites should have the best views, the trees and shrubs on the foreshore block the best of the scenery.  So I’m happy enough where we are.

Out of town and there are meant to be 4 or 5 beaches to stop at over the next 5-6k’s

Bastion, which seems to be where the river opens to the ocean, really good and seems to be patrolled.   There is also another boat ramp here.  

We drop in at a few more spots and stop for a photo at Geology point.  We make it to the end of the road, park up and after a false start find the track down to Pebbly Beach.  Not sure why it has this name as we’ve seen heaps worse in the pebble department.

It’s quite a warm day, so while the sun is really intense, the breeze off the ocean is keeping in bearable.

We spend a bit of time examining the rock formation and pools at either end of this small beach.  Even at school holidays we seem to have the place to ourselves.

On the way back, we pull into the WWII bunker site, it might have been nice to visit, but it does not reopen till Sunday afternoon of all times, and we’ll be on the road by then.   Still interesting to have seen it.

Another quick stop at Davis Creek Beach, which is quite a long beach and while the surf is rather calm, it sure does seem to be mixing up a lot of sand.

A rest up in the afternoon, my neck for some reason is really bothering me.

Someone walking though the park screams out that they’ve just seen a Koala on the ground, Justine and Caitlin, see it cross the road and it seems to be being harassed by some minor birds.  Not sure where it came from, but seem it was probably in the tree not far from us.   

After the kerfuffle dies down, we take a walk down to the fish caravan on the foreshore.  Justine is keen on getting some fresh seafood for dinner.   As we walk up, we see the oddest thing, there is this single pelican out front of the van, just like it’s queueing up to order.  As we arrive it does move on, only to go around the back to see if it can come in the back door.  Apparently the Pelican’s name is Duncan, and as he tries this trick often they have the back door blocked!

They’re apparently out of prawns, which Justine really wanted, and the fish options don’t sound great, so we end up with just a few squid hoods that we’ll cook up later.

The grand final starts and the guys beside us have the tellie out, and some people a few sites down, but that appears to be it, isn’t Victoria meant to be sporting mad????

Later in the afternoon I take a walk down to the foreshore, I’ve got the DSLR and figure I’ll see if I can get a few good shots of the Pelicans (note: I can’t). While down there I hear a couple point out some rays swimming in the water.  Seem some fisherman have thrown the offcuts of some small sharks they’ve just filleted into the water and the Rays are getting a free feed out of it.   It’s so hard to see them in the shaded waters.  But still impressive.  I go back the van and in the end we all go back down for a look.

With the AFL, I expected it to be a bit rowdier in the caravan park, bit it was all pretty calm and peaceful. 

Justine cooks up the calamari rings on the BBQ, they ended up pretty damn good.  It ends up being a bit of a grazing dinner.

Justine and I walk down later in the evening to see the moon over the water, I assume we’ve caught tit a bit earlier tonight as it seems a bit more impressive with a better refection over the river.