Lakes Entrance 90 mile beach

Hi All,

Thinking about doing a trip over to the Lakes entrance / ninety mile beach area (from adelaide) over the australia day weekend period. Can anybody tell me:
1) what the camping (bush camping) is like over that way? Bear in mind we will be taking our dog
2)Can you drive on ninety mile beach and the dunes, or have the greenies taken ownership?
3) Any places of highlight?
4) Anything else?

Cheers

I know there is no sand driving allowed in vic, ring up before hand parks/council in the area to make sure there is space available for camping.

Hi Simon
I think this spot is called 90 mile beach we went to just after christmas this year (or last year, what ever you want to call it)
On the Coorong road from Tailem bend to mount gambier there is a spot called salt creek (A servo with a camping ground).
Go into there and you can get all the info about the area from there.
Straight across the road from the servo there is a dirt road, take that road for about 10 kms.
Then there is a right hand turn that will take you through a very short track onto a dry salt bed. when across go straight up to the beach,
or turn right into a big grass area that you can also camp at. Nice area protected by a mother of a sand hill from the wind. $5 a night per car.
Going up the sand hill is time to let your tyres right down.
Once on the beach you can turn left (we didn't go that way) or turn right and head towards the murray mouth outlet.
Its about 90 kms down & 90 kays back. First 15-20 kays down is very soft sand, after that it hardens up quite well.
You can also camp on little cutouts in ths small sand hills. Little bit blowy though.
We stayed one night on the beach and one night in the grass camp ground.
Lots of people down there fishing but is a big area so not that busy.
Dogs would not be a problem.
I think the beach is closed a certin time of the year for nesting or something but it was opened up a few weeks before we went through.
It would still be open now till probably june or something like that.

If not that area i recomend robe to beachport, Excellent 4wdriving. Would be very bust that weekend though

Here are some photos of the 90 mile beach

Here are some pics of the 90 mile beach when we were there.

You wont find many bush type camping areas at Lakes. There is caravan parks and community parks that allow pets but if you want bush camping you'll need to go to somewhere like Lake Bunga (turn off is about 5 ks east of Lakes). Lake Tyres Glass House offers bush camping but the turn off is past Nowra Nowra and the road is about 15ks of rutted dirt road.

If you are looking at camping there is many places along the 90 mile beach which starts way back down towards the Prom. On Australia Day weekend I'd avoid anywhere from Woodside to Loch Sport unless you want to join in the fishing comp. Around towns like Woodside and Loch Sport camping on or near the beach isn't allowed but any other time of the year many people get away with it because there isn't enough people around, this weekend however would be different.

Like Solid said driving on our beaches isn't allowed and the only way to do it is on the beaches that are remote enough not too see too many people. I wouldn't start beach driving until east of Lakes and even then I'd only ever drive over the hummocks and park not try and use it as a highway. The forrestry mob tend to be a little less strict if they catch you and you've only driven on the beach to use your car as an aid to your camp and not as a tool to get up the beach further.

As for highlights there is quite a number of historic things if you into that however many of them require you get the knowledge in the main towns then go off and look for the sites because the sites don't have information booths telling you why they are historic.

Anything else? yeah if you love crowds go for it if you don't like crowds avoid the 90 mile beach until easter. Christmas to Easter the Lakes population nearly doubles especially over public holidays

And there's some camping spots East of Lakes all the way to Mallacoota if you like.

Go to
"The Map Shop"
6-10 Peel St,
Adelaide.

link

The Map Shop, 6-10 Peels St, Adelaide, South Australia 5000


or



Maps Downunder
Werribee, Vic

link

Maps Downunder -- Welcome



and get yourself copies of "Rooftops"

-Snowy River - Mckillops Bridge-Lakes Entrance Adventure Map,
&
-Gippsland Lakes - Ninety Mile Beach Adventure Map, maps

and take your pick of where to go.

They both will post maps to you or if your close to Peel st, go in yourself.

The camp/fishing spots for surf fishing are less populated east of Lakes cause of isolation/distance driving on dirt tracks but its up to you anyway.

Have a safe trip anyway

and be sure if you camp to take out what you take in.

Tight lines!

Mallacoota is probably a bit far for some one from Adelaide to get in a weekend trip but places like Mallacoota, Bemm River and Metung are good spots, they do get a little busy around this time of year and bushfires threats are real down there so be prepared but the fishing is brilliant.

Bemm River has some really good tracks to camp on and if you go out of holidays time you will only see people when you go into the pub for dinner or bait.

A mate of mine co-owns an old lighthouse south of Cann River that was once going to be set up as a beach resort (but it never happened) and because the area is only accessible with written permission it's one of the best spots for fishing cause no one ever goes there, it's only down side is no prawns so we have to make the trek down to Mallacoota, which is happening in a few weeks.

Sounds like i got the wrong beach.
Good spot though if you dont want to go all the way over to vic.

Hehe.

Yeah tis a bit of a drive from Adelaide to Lakes and beyond.

Beyond Lakes is still a bit of a drive for Melbournians given that Lakes is about 2 hours from Dandenong but its well worth the extra ks if you're a fisherman as the beachs east of lakes are so much cleaner, so much quieter and much less fished.

As an example of how much cleaner they are we are still considering going down near Golden beach this Thursday if the wind eases off tonight but will be expecting large amounts of weed and side wash yet going down to Lakes on the weekend its highly unlikely that this wind and crappy weather will have had any effect on the tracks or beaches and fishing wont have been effected.

Found out today the place i was talking about earlier on in this post is called 42 mile beach

nav-pilot said:

Found out today the place i was talking about earlier on in this post is called 42 mile beach

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Thats just a shorter version of ours.

Thanks for all the info guys. Nav-pilot, im a bit of a regular down at salt creek, might see you down there one day. Have decided not to make the trip to Lakes Entrance at this time, not too keen on the possibility of crowds. Decided to go to Coffin Bay NP instead.

Not sure when other states have their Queens Birthday holiday but in Vic we have it in June and even though Victoria get bagged for their weather the Queens Bday weekend is a good time down at Lakes, not too busy and there is still good fishing to be had. The only down side is that its not prawn season

krafty, I was thinking (just by looking at the map) that the lakes entrance area would be kind of remote, but then worked out it is about 200km from melbourne where 2 million people are. Is this area pretty popular with the melbournians? Is it more of a 'soft' tourists place rather than a outback adventure? Is it similar to the western side of the coast of melbourne, such as torquay, warnambool etc?

Don't get me started on how stupid it is around Anglesea-Lorne-Apollo Bay. 10s of km of bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to Apollo Bay, which only has one servo (a Mobil products one) which may or may not have bio-diesel but definitely charge a premium for their fuel.

We had to go through there - we were, after all, on holidays to see the 12(ish) Apostles.

We were warned away from Lakes Entrance this time of year - we were told it was "usually overrun with yobbos and families with brats a-plenty".

Not that we needed to go there this trip, but the advice was offered anyway. Whether it truly reflects how things are I couldn't say.

Lakes Entrance does generally get the tourist traffic from Melbourne, it's about 3 1/2 hours drive to the Melbourne CBD.

I grew up there, when I was a kid the population of Lakes went from 3'900 off peak to around 45'000 at Christmas time. My parent's have been in the tourism/hospitality sector for most of that time. My dad has had a few jobs including working the Scallop boats but there isn't much of that going on now.

It couldn't be classed as remote by any stretch.

In this day and age with bypasses and freeway Lakes isn't much more that a scenic drive for most people in Melbourne. They rush down there for weekends when the sun is out and for holidays, but what most of them don't realise is that the weather is fairly good down there most of the year and if you can get time off outside of school holidays not only will accommodation be cheaper but you can near set a bomb off in the main drag and no one will see it.

For me traveling an extra 20 odd ks and making Lake Tyers where there is caravan parks and rental accommodation is a much better choice, there is still an influx of people in the summer but no where near as bad as Lakes and your still only a short drive away from Lakes to get supplies the local shop doesn't stock (which is most things). A mate of ours has a house near the boat ramp at Tyers and even in the busy season its nearly tranquil.

I agree with Jason's figures though. My mate delivers bread down that way and in a non peak period he's putting about 1000-1500 units of bread into the stores around Lakes each day. Peak time that goes up to around 6000 since Safeway/Woolies has moved in.

Lake Tyres is nice, there is lots of exploring to be done around Lakes Entrance. Other places worthy of visiting are Lake Bunga, Paynesville, Metung and there are a couple of Bluffs. There is lots of forest/park around to drive through as well.

Oh and a couple of wineries and the Tambo River is up the road.

Jason said:

Oh and a couple of wineries and the Tambo River is up the road.

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If only it was breweries, then us blokes wouldn't have to spend the whole time fishing. Then again there is a few micro breweries in this area and I've never been overly impressed with any of them so Lakes really needs CUB to move in not just any brewery.