MEANDERING SHORES
Exploring East Gippsland through its villages.
AN EAGLE FLIES LANGUID CIRCLES above the Mitchell River valley and seems unperturbed by an audience in this somewhat under-appreciated corner of the country. Flanked by the Great Dividing Range and Bass Strait, the coast of East Gippsland is a bucolic landscape of paddocks dotted with sheep, cows and the occasional emu, rustic colonial cottages and sheds, national parks, Indigenous history, river valleys, vast lakes and uninhabited beaches. Like the eagle overhead, the area deserves the attention it’s garnering. My husband and I look out from a prime spot on the sturdy deck of Lightfoot & Sons winery and cellar door, perched on solid tables and benches made from the red gum posts of the old Wuk Wuk Bridge. A tractor putts between chequerboard paddocks, grapevines wrap their spindly rows around the side of the hill and irrigation systems spray water high into the air. As we quaff Lightfoot’s prize-winning wines and nibble on local cheeses, we decide it’s the perfect place to begin a tour of Victoria’s south-east coast and its series of history-laden, pretty villages.
LINDENOW
Fortune smiled on Lindenow, a village on the other side of the river, when Tanya Bertino and her partner Anton Eisenmenger returned to her hometown to open The Long Paddock. The aptly named cafe sits in the heart of the village, surrounded by fields striped with long green rows of lettuces. With chefs’ pedigrees as long as my arm, Tanya and Anton have unleashed their Europe-honed cooking skills on both locals and those who travel from further afield to sample their food fashioned from local produce such as fava beans, basil, seafood and quinces. The
golden pastry encasing my chicken and fennel sausage pie is buttery, flaky and delicious, while the meat has been slow-cooked in the cafe’s antique Scotch oven. The pear tart, made from fruit grown on the family farm, retains the stalk and glistens in its home-made pastry casing. A short walk from The Long Paddock sits Altar Ego, a weatherboard church transformed into self-contained accommodation. Two tastefully decorated rooms offer space for up to six guests. The free-standing bath sits in splendour on the old altar platform beneath a spectacular modern chandelier made from 64 pieces. “I stood on a chair to put it together,” says Robyn Dunkley, the practical proprietor.
BAIRNSDALE
Downstream and a short drive from Lindenow is the commercial heart of East Gippsland, Bairnsdale. You could choose to make the Riversleigh Hotel your base; the former grand houses and one-time home of a doctor’s surgery present a stately Victorian facade. Spacious rooms show off views of the river from the attractive wrought-iron balcony that spans the building, while original 19th-century stables next door have been converted into The Loft. It’s here that Gerard DeBoer, the new owner and chef, pulls out all stops to please with a modern Australian menu in a character-filled restaurant of exposed brick and vaulted ceilings that betray the building’s history. Try the delicious duck curry or chargrilled eye fillet with rustic potatoes and blistered beans. There is plenty to keep you occupied for a day or two in Bairnsdale. Across the road from the Riversleigh, the East Gippsland Art Gallery – housed in a historic building overlooking the river – is a shrine to the creative energy of East Gippsland with work by local artists. Northern Ground cafe on Main Street serves breakfast delights such as fresh fruit salad steeped in rosewater with yoghurt panna cotta and a sprinkling of flowers, while velvety mushroom soup hits the right spot for lunch. Picnic Point Farm, further upstream, is a must-stop for produce grown in its orchards; we help ourselves to a bag of red apples and a jar of raspberry jam and leave the money in an ice-cream container. The Bairnsdale Bazaar in the vast space of the old butter factory sells an eclectic mix of vintage-ware and the odd antique; we don’t have room in the car for the treadle sewing machine, drinks dispenser machine or a life-size plastic pirate. On Dalmahoy Street, Krowathunkooloong, or the Keeping Place, documents the history of the local Indigenous people, the Gunaikurnai, including the massacres at Butchers Ridge and Slaughterhouse Gully,
and the infamous protectionist policies of the 19th century. It is a moving exhibition displaying black-and-white photographs from the late 1800s and the history of Lake Tyers and Ramahyuck missions. Artefacts include a taxidermy dingo and a bark canoe.
PAYNESVILLE
Water was the lifeblood for the Gunaikurnai people, and is one of East Gippsland’s biggest drawcards, with winding rivers, lakes teeming with birds and the ocean pounding the white sands of the Ninety Mile Beach. The road leading from Bairnsdale to the town of Paynesville runs beside the Mitchell River towards its mouth where its contents sift through the silt jetties into Lake King and the network forming the Gippsland Lakes, the largest inland waterway in Australia. Paynesville, wedged between Lake King and Lake Victoria, has grown from a tiny fishing village into a popular lake-side town. Mark Briggs, formerly head chef at Vue de Monde, and Victoria Hollingsworth have established Sardine, a new restaurant overlooking McMillan Strait, in the centre of the town. Originally from the United Kingdom and Melbourne respectively, the couple are relishing their new life in the country. “This is my office,” says Mark as he gestures from his kitchen towards a yacht gliding past on the strait. My lunch of braised ox tail and pommes Anna, garnished with a bone worthy of Fred Flintstone, is rich, flavoursome and delicious. The white chocolate richness of my lavender mousse dessert is tempered by mandarin sorbet and spiked with honeycomb, tuile and toffee shards made from Raymond Island Honey. Pier 70, another popular restaurant across the road, sits atop the old fisherman’s wharf with a view of the picturesque strait and the Raymond Island Ferry chugging its cargo of cars and pedestrians to and fro across it. Raymond Island is only accessible by the ferry or boat and buzzes with native wildlife. We take the ferry on foot to better feel the breeze and inhale the briny smell of the lakes. A walk along the koala trail guarantees sightings of its protagonists snoozing or fighting in the branches of the manna gum trees. Pods of dolphins are known to regularly dip and dive their way up and down the waters of the narrow strait. Back on the mainland, the Paynesville Wine Bar packs a powerful punch for its small size. Stu Hughes and the Blues Cruise sets the joint jumping with an enthusiastic audience dancing between tables and anywhere the cheerful patrons can find a space.
METUNG
On the other side of Lake King perches the hidden town of Metung, nestled on a spit between the lake and the curve of Bancroft Bay. The Princes Highway leads the way from Bairnsdale to Metung, over and along the Tambo River. Chinaman’s Creek is the mooring place for a flotilla of bobbing yachts; the halyards tinking against their silver masts. People stroll along or fish from a boardwalk running around the bay, beside the road that leads into town past a colourful assortment of boats. The Legend Rock, sacred to the Gunaikurnai people and once part of a group of three, can be seen poking out of the water, near the edge of the road. The other two rocks were destroyed during road works in the 1960s. The Village Green, in the centre of Metung, is flanked by the celebrated Metung Hotel on one side and cosy restaurants,