We woke up very happy. We are in paradise every day. We had breakfast and watched out for wildlife. It was Jay who spotted a massive goanna go by. This was even bigger than the one we saw yesterday. We managed to get some really good photos of him. All morning we had heard a helicopter going overhead over and over. As we were wondering why one of the park rangers came over to see us. He told us that they were doing a controlled burn not very far away but assured us that the camp area was safe. The helicopter was flying over to check that the fire didn't spread beyond the confines of the controlled area. We told him we were leaving shortly and he said that the road we were taking out would be open but that we may have a short wait for an escort vehicle to take us through the smoke. Whilst he was here we asked him about the snake that we had seen yesterday. He told us that it was a red bellied black snake. It was venomous but not sufficiently so to kill. It was now raining ash on the camp area. Before we left we went on another walk along the beach. From here we could properly see the bush fire burning. There was loads of smoke and it was dramatic and quite exciting to watch. You could smell the smoke. We just hoped that animals were not being harmed. After the walk we decided to leave. When we got to the end of the road leading away from the camp area we saw road signs warning of the bush fire. We then came to a chap who stopped us and asked us to wait for a vehicle to escort us to the road which took us to the main highway. We only had to wait a couple of minutes. Whilst we were waiting we could see the burnt trees and little fires still burning just the other side of the road. The fire had got very close to where we were now not very long ago. The escort vehicle took us down a smoky bit of road. They were only with us for a couple of minutes but it was all rather exciting. We left the escort vehicle at the main road and drove on to the main highway with the smoke getting lighter the further we went. We're just very glad that we haven't been caught in a real bush fire. Our destination today was Mallacoota. It is supposed to be a very popular seaside resort and very busy during school holidays. It was fairly qIuiet today and seemed quite laid back. We opted to go to the camping area on the foreshore. This is a massive site which stretches for at least a couple of kilometres along the shore of the lake and the ocean. I booked us in and found out whether they did LPG gas refills as we had run out this morning. Luckily the gas ran out on us this morning virtually when the kettle had boiled and our toast was toasty. We were told to go to the Caltex Servo just down the road where we got the refill done. We then went to find our camp spot. It was a big open site but was okay. The only problem was later on when someone somewhere in the distance thought that it would be a good idea to play a piece of bagpipe music on repeat for an hour! It was almost as if we'd been transported to Scotland. We never saw anybody in a kilt or sporting a sporran so we went to bed none the wiser as to who culprit was.