Three weeks in Sale was my next stop. Set in the Gippsland of Victoria I knew very little about it before I got there and have a lot more to learn. But what I did learn was that the area is beautiful. The landscape is incredible – vast, vast stretches of water in lakes, long, long beaches in the north and smaller headland bounded beaches in the south, a stones throw away from the gateway to the alpine region and lush farm land on the plains. Everywhere you drive there is something special and life is as relaxed as the landscapes demand it to be.
Whenever I travel to a new place things that I don’t normally see really jump out at me. And whilst in the Gippsland it was not different. And oddly enough the thing that first jumped out to me was very long, very straight stretches of road. I know it’s a little odd but it was really new for me. Made driving very easy I must admit but did become a little boring. It did get me to thinking why it was the case though. Several thoughts went through my head, the predominant one being that it was the result of the dividing up and giving of farmland to returned vets from world war 1. If I thought about it for much longer I would have realised that the land would have been split up a bit further back than 1918. In the end I found out it was because of the flat land, the easier moving of timber and dairy from farms to ports and also, they clearly got their brief from those in Melbourne where, as we know, you could easily play a game of chess on the streets of Melbourne such is the chequered layout of that city. Anyway, it’s a little thing, but it really grabbed my attention. Luckily enough there were enough twists and turns and hills to make the trip a little less tedious.
Mind you, the little towns you pass through definitely made the trip less tedious. These little places – Maffra, Bairnsdale, Stratford (and ironically it is on the Avon River) – are so nice. They have big wide area down the middle of the town with a lane each way for traffic but these broad, long, grassed and tree lined median strips and most with the most exquisite bandstands. These functional features of a time long gone have been preserved and restored to be a striking feature of these towns allowing us to partially linger a little longer in that time. I’m sure they are not used as they used to be but who knows, they may serve a practical purpose today. But for me, the aesthetic purpose is just as, if not more, valuable than any practical purpose. These towns have deliberately held on to these beautiful elements of the past. They have also kept a lot of the old buildings too. And it made me wonder. Melbourne has probably held on to it’s heritage buildings better than Sydney, so I wonder, is this another thing to add to the chequered streets that has been exported to the regions from Melbourne.
But the thing that really blew my mind was the water. To briefly explain the topography. If we start up at the Lakes Entrance there is literally the narrowest of channels coming in from the sea into an enormous lake system. How big? Well, the beach from Lakes Entrance south is the 90 mile beach so I’m going to suggest that that’s how long it is (for the record it is closer to 94 miles but let’s not haggle), and what you need to realise is that for a good portion of that the ocean is separated from the lake by the thinnest of strips of land. And the lakes go inland a good fair chunk as well. There is water everywhere. When you wind down to the town of Lakes Entrance there is a lookout where you can see a portion of this lake system and it is a must see. It’s a myriad of islands and channels and lakes and rivers – just incredible. Any number of rivers run into this lake system and whilst it is tidal it pretty much all runs in and out of that small channel at Lakes Entrance. How it doesn’t flood more often is beyond me. What has been created there now is east Victorias holiday aquatic based playground. And who would have guessed that water appeared as a highlight of a trip to Victoria. And yes, you might even suggest that the wet and rainy Melbourne has exported a third item to it’s regions.
Gippsland is beautiful, let’s not beat about the bush and let’s not allow my NSW bias to cloud my judgement. Lush country side filled with beef, dairy and sheep. Endless waterways. Towns from a bygone era. A national park to well and truly rival Kur-Ring-Gai and the Royal in Sydney. I would love to go back there some time and do a big photography holiday as there would be easily 10 topics I could choose from to photograph.
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