Lakes Entrance to Tura Beach
Estimated driving time to Philip (Majella’s brother) and Colleen at Tura Beach was a bit more than 3 hours. Majella had told them we would arrive after lunch so a 9:00 am departure seemed about right to me. We were up sometime after 7:00 am and Majella had us on the road before 8:30 am, creating a bit of buffer time.
The road east was narrower than those further west we had driven yesterday but the centre barriers that had appeared toward the end of our drive yesterday were there for the first hour or so. Our route was mostly through forested country all the way through eastern Victoria and into New South Wales. Some sections were untouched by the 2019-2020 black summer fires but other sections had clearly been badly burned. There were signs of recovery with green shoots on the eucalypts and undergrowth emerging.
We paused at Newmerella, just short of Orbost, to buy fuel ($2.09) and then crossed the Snowy river and turned off in Orbost toward Marlo to see the mouth of the Snowy. We stopped briefly there and Majella spoke with a couple of anglers on a jetty to see what they were catching. Not much.
From there Majella drove on east along the coast and then back to the main road. Around 11:00 am we stopped in a rest area for coffee and to change drivers.
I drove on through more of the same country with some areas untouched and others severely fire damaged. We paused briefly at Eden and then drove on to Tura Beach, just north of Merimbula, where we arrived around 1:00 pm.
Philip and Colleen made us welcome. After a tour of their new house, we enjoyed coffee on the front deck before going for a walk along the beach at the bottom of the street. Back at the house we relaxed with wine, cheese, and other nibbles for a while.
Dinner was at Dulcie’s Cottage in Merimbula. That was chosen as an homage to Majella and Philip’s mother. We enjoyed cocktails and beers with our burgers. Majella and I had the Dulcie burger. Philip and Colleen had sampled that previously and tried different offerings, a spicy chicken burger and a (mu)shroom burger which had a large mushroom top in place of the patty.
Dulcie’s Cottage did not serve dessert – a serious oversight given Dulcie’s preference for sweets. On the way home Colleen bought some drumsticks and we enjoyed those on the front deck before finishing with a dram of Drambuie and conversation well into the night.
