Day: October 22, 2025

I awake this morning (23rd October) in Mallacotta, a small town on the edge of the Tasman Sea in south-east Australia. I left Sale earlier than I expected, for reasons I won’t go into, yesterday morning and had to make some quick decisions the day before about how I will be spending the rest of my time here in Australia.

I’d originally intended to head north to Sydney in a few days time driving the whole way in one day and staying over there for a couple of nights but I decided to bring those plans forward a couple of days and take a more leisurely drive up the coast, which I’ve been told is beautiful, stopping over at a couple of places along the way. So yesterday I made my way to Mallacoota and today I’ll be heading for Jervis Bay where I’ve booked to stay over for a couple of nights and go whale watching tomorrow as this is a peak migration time as they head south.

I found that Sale has little to recommend it. It’s a very rural location and although its population numbers over 13000 it seems to offer a simple, fairly basic lifestyle. I arrived on Saturday and on Sunday we enjoyed a very nice roast lunch at the local country club, but the Chinese meal we had the evening before I departed was in rather less than ‘Chinese’ surroundings and left something to be desired. We don’t know what happened to the special fried rice we ordered but which was still on our bill before I pointed it out.

Sale has a wonderful park bordering a lake. When we went for a stroll on Sunday the weather was gorgeous and there were peacocks displaying their stunning tail feathers and lots of quite large ground-walking birds, black with orange beaks and pink chests. While my cousin dozed on a chair under the trees I went for a stroll down to the lake and one that I videoed evidently took a fancy to me and followed me the whole way back from the lake to where my cousin was resting. When I told her about him there was no sign and then he suddenly popped out again from behind a nearby bush.

I left Sale quite early yesterday morning to take a few videos. By then the weather had changed, which it does quite suddenly in these parts I’m told, so it was dull and grey. As the following two images show, Sale is quite a contrast to Melbourne with its strikingly tall, modern skyscrapers. In complete contrast, Sale has a ‘frontier town’ feel about it.

Heading north through South Gippsland the terrain was quite featureless with some distant mountain views. It was flat with scrubby grass with occasional large herds of predominantly black cattle occupying wide areas to take advantage of the availability of grass when it becomes dryer and things warm up. The following shot shows trees on just one side but frequently they were on both making for a rather uninteresting drive.

Conditions became more ‘tropical’ as the drive north continued. The Snowy mountains were off some way to the left but I didn’t realise that I was climbing almost imperceptibly up to higher ground. I stopped to take a few shots that show how the vegetation had changed even over a relatively short distance.

The road descended again and the land became flatter as I approached Mallacotta. There were herds of cattle on the grasslands which were much greener and lusher compared to those I’d passed farther south.

The GPS on my phone took me straight to my destination that I’d booked the day before without paying too much attention to what I was getting. It turned out to be a ‘unit’ just up from the water on a small development where there are several others. Most of the people in the other units seem to be elderly like myself because of the time of year. Although some have come just for a relaxing break I think the main interest is fishing and already before 8.00 am as I type this two vehicles have departed towing boats.

When I arrived there was no reception committee, as the following picture shows, and as much to my annoyance neither of my French phone SIM cards are allowing me to make calls, I had to jump into my car again and go to a different location (a caravan park) to pick up the key to my ‘unit’.

My ‘unit’ is the one with the yellow panel in the following pic in front of which my hire car is parked.

It’s very nice actually. It’s fully self-contained with a lounge, kitchen area and bedroom. The kitchen area is clean and very well equipped but the only surprise this morning was that when I got up the worktop was run alive with thousands of tiny ants, a bit like camping but indoors. It appears that you’re always very close to the wildlife in Australia and that includes the insects, even indoors.

As I said above, the unit is just up from the water’s edge and it was only a short walk down to take some photographs. The whole area seems more or less to be a large camping area and even at this time of the year there were plenty of campers and caravans of all types.

When I arrived, I joked with the lady in the office that I’d come to Australia under false pretences and hadn’t seen one kangaroo or koala. She said that koalas are rife in the surroundings and said if I went down to the golf club I’d see kangaroos lazing around on the greens. In fact I didn’t have to because my first sighting of kangaroos was a small group munching grass on the local football pitch.

After I left Sale yesterday the whole of South Victoria was ravaged by a violent storm (nothing to do with why I left early). Trees were ripped down, buildings were damaged and thousands of homes lost their electricity. I think it’s why the weather is unsettled further north here in Mallacotta. We caught the tail end last night with some quite strong winds which have moderated, although it’s still not warm. When I’ve finished this I’ll be packing my things and heading off for Jervis Bay where I hope conditions will be better.