Lake Eildon

We made it out of Sydney alive! with clean clothes, our tummies full of takeaway and Jarvis loaded up with grandparent hugs.

We stopped at Blackheath on our first night to visit Nonna. A visit which I had been dying for and as if a Nonna hug wasn't enough, she fed us her famous risotto, berry crumble and loaded us up with veges from the garden.

From Blackheath we headed over the range to Bathurst and then followed the western foothills of the range south. The drive from Bathurst to Young was gorgeous, well worth the trip if you're headed that way. Some of the highlights for us were the lunch stop at the wind farm near Blaney (such an engineer I know, but it was really interesting) and the orchards on the hills on the way into young. We only stopped for a night in Young before continuing south towards Vic. We had a rest stop in Cootamundra and we were hoping to see the Cootamundra Wattle in bloom but we were a bit late so only small patches remained. However we did make a fly by visit of Donald Bradman's birthplace, a fairly simple little house, but Jarvis has been asking "where's Dong's house" ever since and is convinced every historic looking house or pub is Dong's house. Maybe we have a budding cricket enthusiast on our hands.

We spent the next four days, including my birthday, at Lake Eildon. We stayed in a state forest just near Mansfield. Mansfield itself is a really cute town, it's got a bit of that Alpine feel as Mount Bulla is just up the road but also has great cafes, deli and all those sorts of things that we love. The campsite was great and free! We had a little clearing on the foreshore of the lake all to ourselves. The lake was extremely full due to all the recent rain and there were trees poking out of the water for metres from the foreshore. The lake itself is spectacular, there are steep rolling hills right down to the water with little farms, pine forests and bush. There are a couple of little towns, one of which is the famous Bonnie Doon ("love the smell of two stroke in the morning"). We took the boat the Bonnie Doon on my birthday. It took over an hour to get there due to the massive size of the lake and we found a little island for a picnic lunch. Rob got a spot of fishing in while during our stay at the Lake and Jarvis again assisted this process by sleeping for most of the time on the boat. We will definitely be back to Lake Eildon for a visit one day we have had a fabulous time here.

Jarvis fishing for a daddy fish.

Random camel by the side of the road

Sleeping on the boat

Campsite