Saturday 3rd June 2000, continued.

The Genoa-Mallacoota road is pretty windy. Lots of sandy tracks lead off to secret inlets and hidden pockets of rainforest. All very exciting and intriguing. So many opportunities for walks! Get better quickly, ankle!

The Mallacoota pub hosts a motel and the YHA. The dorms are converted old motel rooms. The accomodation is adequate for my needs but not super flash. The town itself was not exactly hopping on this winter Saturday afternoon. The footy was on on the radio as I wandered around one of the two supermarkets in town, and I was somewhat dismayed to hear that my beloved Dees were playing rather badly.

Mallacoota is set on Bottom Lake. It is called Bottom Lake not because it is shaped like a bottom but because it is south of Top Lake. Top Lake and Bottom Lake are joined by a strip of water call the Narrows, but I didn't think the Narrows were that narrow, only in comparison to the width of the lakes. It all makes a strange sort of sense. No matter - it was extremely pretty. Bottom Lake provides an idyllic outlook to the east of the town. It was still and almost as flat as a millpond, yet from over the sandbar only a kilometre away, I could hear the surf roaring as it pounded the beach and occasionally saw the spume from a big wave.

I walked out to the coast via pittosporum track. Yeah, so my ankle was still hurting. Like what is new? There was no way I was not going to see stuff simply cos my ankle was bung. There was plenty of pittosporum (a rainforest plant with wrinkly-edged largeish flat leaves and orange berry-fruits) around and I had to keep reminding myself that pittosporum out here is not a weed. It is in Melbourne - it will establish itself rapidly and reproduce itself and eventually will shade out all competing plants. I guess that something here keeps it in check. I found lots of kangaroo grass in a place called Mortimers Paddock but none of the current croop of seeds was ripe yet and anyway it is naughty to pick stuff from crown land.

The sun set behind Mallacoota, but the clouds in the east gave some great pink and mauve reflections on the water. I took quite a number of photos, for both your and my delectation and delight.

I was in love. The view of the sunset had a remarkable effect on me - for the first time in ages, I was calm, totally at peace. Later on that evening, I walked a little way out of town to have a look at the stars. The Milky Way spanned the heavens from horizon to horizon and I could see stars whose names and constellations I had not seen before (they were Hercules and Altair). That had to be Corona Borealis, the northern crown, matching the southern one on the other side of Scorpio. The sight was glorious. So many stars. So much beauty....

I found myself trying to imagine travelling like this with another person, and I doubted that any other would enjoy this as I do. Still, that won't stop me from trying to get others to travel with me. :-)

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Dr Bunny's trip to Merimbula and Mallacoota/email me/last modified 30th June 2000.