Gippsland Lakes region offering beautiful beaches, rivers and delicious seafood
Love eating fresh seafood and taking luxurious swims in pristine waters? Add Lakes Entrance to your list of must-visit regional towns in Victoria.
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The waters of the Gippsland Lakes are enticing back visitors as fun and fresh seafood make for the perfect getaway.
Lifelong Lakes Entrance resident and fisherman Darryl Fulton said the regions water, beaches and rivers were as beautiful as ever.
Prawns sold fresh off trawlers at Lakes Entrance harbour have always been a popular holiday treat.
Mr Fulton, 44, and mate Buzz Butcher had been selling an average of 200kg of the crustaceans off the back of their boat a day.
This season they’d be lucky to sell 20 kilos.
“We’ve got the best and freshest prawns of anywhere in the country, right here,” Mr Butcher, 45, said.
“They were swimming around very happily until just a few hours ago!”
Motels, hotels, holiday units and caravan parks dotted throughout the Gippsland Lakes region — taking in Lakes Entrance, Paynesville, Metung and Mallacoota and the country towns of Bruthen and Buchan — are ready for bookings.
Cafes, restaurants and shops are also primed for visitors.
Graeme Jenkins, who runs a fruit farm with wife Elaine at Johnsonville about 20km east of Bairnsdale, said it was the perfect time for a trip to buy a crate of sweet peaches, plums or pears.
“Most people wouldn’t know this, but the drought actually makes fruit sweeter – it brings out the sugars in them,” Mr Jenkins, 77, said.
East Gippsland tourism authorities say while the Australia Day long weekend gave the region a much-needed boost it was nowhere near enough to claw back the lost income and see traders through the coming winter.
Tourism, hospitality and accommodation providers were hoping to lure couples and families back with a smorgasbord of events, festivals and special offers.
Hayley Hardy of East Gippsland Marketing said a campaign encouraging city folk to “share the love” in Paynesville on Valentine’s Day and book a romantic weekend away was just the start with some venues offering a range of special deals for lovebirds.
If it’s more organised activities which float visitors’ boats, the East Gippsland’s Festival of Festivals would kick off soon, Ms Hardy said.
The festival season started with the Paynesville Music Festival, from February 21-23 and wrapped up with the Metung Food and Wine Festival on June 9.
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In between there was the Paynesville Classic Boat Rally, from February 28 to March 1, the Mallacoota Wild Harvest Festival from April 3 to 5, and the Gippsland Lakes Paddle Challenge on May 2.
The Buchan Cup — promising picnic races fun for all the family — will be run on February 15.
“Please come back, because the coast is now clear,” Ms Hardy said.