Well, after about 7 hours of driving (with a brief stop for lunch in Eden - which has very little correlation with the biblical reference) we arrived in Lakes Entrance. From the outset it looked nice. The sun was shining and after popping into three different places we went for the room with the self catering option... I personally thought this was an unnecessary extra however, after finding that the vegetarian options were very limited ( and the only Italian place was closed for one night) this was actually a good call.... We did end up eating in a place that had all the charm of a council estate restaurant where the average age was over 60. There was either a raffle or bingo going in some other part of this multifunctional building.... Bizarrely enough this evening we decided not to drink... This might be the first day since the beginning of out trip....

Anyway the next day started early at 7.30... I know this because some b@gger who was the previous occupant in the room had set the alarm for this time. As we hadn't been drinking the previous night we decided to go for a run along the Esplanade before Steph made me do lots of exercises she had learnt from her personal trainer (thanks Daron)

We then drove out to Nowa Nowa for a 8 mile walk to the Stoney Creek Trestle Bridge (and back), which was a wooden, creek crossing rail bridge. Apparently the largest in the state - but no longer in use (since 1988). It was a great structure and we stopped and listened to the frogs singing at the bottom of the creek- though we could not see any of them. During our two hour return trip we only saw one other person... It a bit quiet here... This feeling did not change when we returned to Lakes Entrance, a lovely place but very quiet....

At the time of writing this we are sitting outside on the balcony of our room looking over the lake, drinking wine and listening to our nearby neighbour who is a ZZ top guitarist lookalike talking/ singing to himself, while he drinks beer, smokes weed and burps occasionally... Thankfully his room is not next to ours. Well we can't have everything.

....

The next day we chilled out and took a walk over the lake to 90 mile beach, which is, well the name gives it away. The waves were large and the beach was empty, which seems to be a common theme along this side of Australia. In the afternoon we took the car out to some rather uninspiring lakes that I can't even remember the names of. (actually Steph remembers - they were called Bunga and Teree).

We ended up having a home cooked meal that evening watching the ZZ top guitarist lookalike getting progressively more drunk/ stoned (we wondered whether he was a permanent resident). The next day the drive to Melbourne....mostly done by Steph