Arriving in Lakes Entrance, driving down the Esplanade, you could be fooled into thinking you had arrived in 1970’s Torquay. I think we counted 6 lots of Mini Golf before we’d got to our motel. There was 60’s music blaring out of a crackly speaker at the ice cream parlour, which, if you closed your eyes really did take you back in time.

The children had been in their car seats for long enough so we gave in to their demands for ice cream and mini golf. It seems like the man who runs the mini golf also hires out little boats, runs the ice cream parlour and has a chip shop. You just have to ring his mobile if you want anything other than golf.

Once Monty had finished whacking golf balls at every passing pensioner and Poppy had stopped crying because “I’m just rubbish at this stupid game”, we wrestled the clubs out of their hands and headed for 90 mile beach.

You have to cross a beautiful long bridge to get to the beach. The scenery is pretty awesome. There are black swans with their babies bobbing along behind them, on top of chrystal clear water, and people dotted along the beach enjoying the water. As you cross the bridge, in the distance, as bright as the sun were the peddle boats! “Can we mum? Go on dad!” This is my idea of hell, and Tim’s idea of a “right laugh”. I can assure you I wasn’t laughing after 15 minutes of going round and round in circles with the wind pushing us under the bridge we were sternly told not to go under. Monty was desperately trying to touch the water, giving me heart failure every time he inched a little further over the edge. Poppy was begging Tim to steer properly so we’d be facing the shoreline. I was half laughing, half crying, peddling full pelt to no avail. $30 well spent!! 

We clambered out of the boat and up the hill to 90 mile beach! What an awesome view. The sun was beating down, the life guards were kicking back with their binoculars and my legs were bloody killing from the peddling. Time to get some photos and head back to the motor inn.

We ended our afternoon with a nice warm beer (esky had been in the back of the car for two days). I drank mine whilst sat by the pool, Tim’s just got even warmer on the table as the children demanded he play water polo! It amazes me that even after hours of walking, running, playing and scooting we still need to spend time getting the children to burn even more of their boundless energy. This afternoons swimming was basically an exercise in tiring them out before we go to dinner and they have to sit still again. I don’t know what’s worse, a wide awake Monty or a livid tired one! It looked like it was going to be one of those “do anything to keep the peace” evenings.

Tim had booked us a table at one of the local fish restaurants called Ferrymans so we strolled back toward the town with the children scooting precariously close to the edge of the harbour wall. I’m sure they do things like that on purpose, just to make a relaxing, semi romantic stroll turn into a terrifying, panic ridden trot to dinner! I felt like a mad woman when we arrived at the restaurant. My cheeks were red, I was a little sweaty and my hair had been blown into a frizzball after chasing the scooting maniacs.

As we were in a fishing town we decided to have a lovely seafood platter and a bottle of wine. We kept the children happy with chicken and chips. As it got later, and the wine got less and less, the children got louder and we started to not give a hoot!! Pretty sure we managed to ruin a couples romantic meal by being the loudest table. You know what it’s like when you do that “we don’t get out much” drinking. You kind of let loose and think, bugger it, “shout if you want to, mummy doesn’t care anymore!” It was mostly Monty hollering about his bloody Pokemon cards that Poppy was “touchiiiinnnnngggg”. We secretly paid for the lovebirds wine to make up for the loss of romance caused by our chaos. 

The walk back to the hotel was a lot more relaxed, that’s the magic of wine. We stopped to check out a small beach, and Monty noticed a crab creeping toward the water. As we looked closer the sand seemed to be alive with baby crabs. I hollered at Tim to get a video of them, so I could upload it to the blog. No sooner had he clicked record I noticed Monty was stabbing a baby crab with a sharp stick. I was mortified, bollocked him and therefore made the video unusable. So, apologies folks there’s just a couple of rubbish pictures of a seriously spectacular happening. 

Only a day left of our road trip and then it’s time to start making friends and a life in Melbourne. I just want to savour this little bit of freedom. We have no keys, no home, no school, no work, just us, the road and a whole heap of love for our Australian adventures.

The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.

Here’s to the final leg…..