Well we left the beautiful town of Lakes Entrance last Sunday and we are wondering!! WHY. The trip down here to Eden was fairly uneventful, with the customary stop at Cann River for coffee. That town must be one of the busiest small towns in Victoria. There were caravans parked all around the town and a large contingent of motor cycle riders all stopped there enjoying the coffee.
I suppose it is about half way between Merimbula and Bairnsdale and also the main town if you take the back way out of Canberra.
After our rest stop it was off to the awesome coastal village of Eden. We pulled in to the spacious caravan park and got set up before heading up to the main street to check out the town. I must admit that I had wonderful visions of this great little coastal village, but first impressions were not overly promising. My first visions of beautiful beaches and beautiful boulevards and shopping arcades were shot straight out the window.
I had no idea that Eden was so hilly. The thought of getting the bikes out for a leisurely ride have been totally shelved. I don't think there is one strip of land that is flat for more than 500 metres. Living here would be like living on a flat spot half way up Mt Everest. Apart from living on a mountain slope, being a Sunday, everything except the Supermarkets are closed. I have to confess though that I did walk into an open door of a café and the owner was there cleaning up, as she does on Sundays, and she so graciously agreed to make us a coffee. It must have been my distressed look at the shattering of all of my illusions of Eden.
Monday was spent just settling in and doing the household chores and then we headed over to Merimbula to visit a friend of ours that is currently battling some health issues. On leaving the caravan park, there was a small family of kangaroos that have set up home at the park, obviously not scared of people at all. It was great to catch up with Keith and his wife Trish again and I must say that I was happy to see Keith looking so well. Here's hoping for a rapid recovery for him. While we were in Merimbula there was just the odd shower of rain, but of course, it is Spring and the sun will be out again SOON.
The following day we visited the Eden Killer whale museum. This was really quite interesting and is your history lesson for the day. Way back in the late 1800's there was a big shore based whaling industry in Eden. Whenever a whale was sighted in the bay the whalers would man their boats, and, in the true spirit of Moby Dick, they would go after the whale and attempt to harpoon it, before eventually killing it and towing it back to the shore for processing.
The truly amazing thing was that there was a large pod of killer whales that would actually herd a large whale into the bay for the Whalers. They have photos of these whales and they all had their own particular names. The most popular of them was called 'Old Tom'. The killer whales would surround and trap the whales so that they could not escape the whalers. After being harpooned, some of the whales would roll over the injured whale and block its blowhole to prevent it from breathing, thus expediting its death. As payment for their assistance, the whalers would leave the carcass for the killer whales so that they could feast on the lips and tongues, sometimes weighing up to 4 tonne. This is a really incredible case of an obviously very smart sea creature working in conjunction with the whalers.
Gradually the whaling industry became less profitable and the last whale was taken at Eden in 1928. It was in 1930 that the carcass of Old Tom was found floating in the bay and it appears that he came back to Eden to die. It was agreed upon that they should create a museum in recognition of the whaling industry. His skeleton was preserved and is now on display in the museum.
The museum also houses all manner of whaling equipment and photos, as well as serving as a display area for all of the war related memorabilia for the area. It is well worth visiting.
After leaving the museum we headed up into town for lunch and it started raining. And for your information, IT IS STILL RAINING. It is now Thursday night and it has rained for the last 2 days solid. How awesome is that. And just to make it even better, Eden, this little awesome coastal village, has NOTHING to do when it is wet.
Not to be dissuaded of course, we decided to go for a walk along the boardwalk, between showers, on Tuesday night. How lucky are we!!! A couple of hundred metres along the boardwalk there is a bloody black snake, about 3 to 4 ft long. From the way it was lying, it was probably dead but not really sure. How lucky are we. My back is causing me a lot of stress and I could not run even if it was a really angry snake.
It was quite funny for the next couple of hundred metres, as my back was constantly going into a spasm, threatening to put me on the ground, and every time it spasmed I would grip Debs hand tightly. Every time this frightened the cripes out of her as she thought I had seen another snake. Not the most exciting walk we have ever taken. We were both very happy to get back home, as, of course, it had started raining again. Thank god for the umbrella.
Wednesday came and went in a blur. It rained all day. Did not stop for one minute.
Thursday came and it was off to Merimbula to meet up with Keith again for a coffee. Driving past the Eden golf course, there were about 25 kangaroos clustered on the green at the 18th hole. Obviously the safest place to be if I was playing. After coffee we checked out the cinema at Merimbula but nothing on that suited us. We decided to go for a bit of a tourist drive and checked out the little coastal village of Tathra. Of course, it is also on that Mt Everest slope, but at least there is a flat section and a beach. I am sorry but I could not get any photos of the beach, as the mongrel rain was really heavy and almost blocking out all views of the ocean. I had to get at least one photo in the town so I had to rely on the old faithful, a church. I went into the catholic church and snapped the leadlight window and got a snap of the church. A very quaint little church.
After that it was off to Bega and to go to the Bega Cheese Factory. We checked out the town first and it is a reasonable size town for the area. The paddocks are so waterlogged all around the area and they say that the area has had the normal November rainfall in just the first 5 days. Awesome.
The cheese factory was quite good and, believe it or not, the price of the cheese on sale was, I think, cheaper than you would get in the supermarket. They had a really good couple of murals inside that were made up of all different types of grains. They were displayed at the Sydney Show in 2000 and won a gold medal in its Art class. Another bonus was there were sampling cheese platters with an unlimited free supply of cheese. Being a lover of cheese, this was almost heaven.
After leaving Bega it was back towards our caravan at Lake Eden. As we were driving past the Eden golf course Deb asked me if I would like to potoroo? I think she meant how would you putt with the roos on the green but not totally sure. Maybe she has been doing her nature studies and knows that a potoroo is an Australian Native marsupial. The things you learn on this blog.
Back at the van it was good to see that it had not floated away. We are hoping to go out on a whale watching boat on Saturday, but we will not know until tomorrow night if the weather is suitable. Maybe it will have stopped raining by then.
Speak to you again soon.
Barry and Deb.
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