You may remember that I said we had been in paradise in a previous blog - well today we have been in Eden! Not only that but we are now in another beautiful place and another great view from our balcony! As I write a big yellow moon has just risen and is shining across the water in front of us.

View from our balcony this evening

This morning we decided we could spend some time exploring Mallacoota before leaving, as we didn't have a long drive to Merimbula, where we are now. It was a beautiful morning - still breezy but not quite as wild as yesterday! We went down to Bastion Point, where the sea was powering in against the rocks, as it was at Betka beach, where we went for a walk. We tried to follow the coastal path to start with but soon realised it went across the beach and the tide was coming in! We beat a hasty retreat without getting our feet wet and discovered at the same time that this was another squeaky beach!

Bastion Point

Betka Beach

The walk we did take was on the cliff top but in native bush and then looped round along the river. We saw a tiny lizard at one point - only about 5cm long. A little later in the day we saw something at the other extreme but more about that when we come to it!

We stopped off briefly to see the kangaroos near the golf club! There were 30 or so of them and they were some distance away so no photos this time - we are getting a bit blasé about kangaroos! We had a coffee in Mallacoota before saying our goodbyes. This is definitely a place one could return to and we thoroughly enjoyed our brief time there.

On our way back to the main road we took a detour to Gypsy Point and no sooner had we got out of the car than we saw a lace goanna! It must have been at least 1.5m and it stayed around while we were there although it wasn't easy to photograph.

Lace goanna

We went on to the main road and soon crossed the state border into New South Wales. The first major town we came to was Eden! Here we had lunch and admired the views of the double bay in which it is set. There was a huge P&O cruise ship in one half of the bay - so big it couldn't dock but small tenders were ferrying people back and forwards.

P&O cruise ship in Twofold Bay, Eden

It was just a short hop from there to Merimbula and our beautiful apartment. We are here for five nights so we have done something we haven't done for nearly six weeks - unpacked! We decided this would be our chill out time before returning home and so far it seems the perfect place for that. I think you can expect to hear that we have done nothing much for the next few days!