Gippsland

Gippsland begins where Melbourne's eastern fringe surrenders to real country — and it doesn't stop for several hundred kilometres. This is the big, quiet Victoria that most visitors miss on the freeway, a region of fertile valleys, deep forests, an inland sea of interconnected lakes and the longest continuous stretch of coastal dune in Australia.

The Gippsland Lakes — Lakes Entrance, Lake King, Lake Wellington and their tributaries — form a vast 400 square kilometre waterway of estuaries, channels and inlets. Fishing from a hired houseboat, exploring by kayak, or simply sitting on the deck as pelicans patrol the wharves at dusk defines a particular kind of Australian holiday. Lakes Entrance is the gateway — a small, honest town that lives and breathes recreational fishing.

South of the lakes, the Ninety Mile Beach runs along an exposed surf coast with powerful swell and almost no development. The camping is basic and the wind can be punishing, but the sky and the sea are magnificent. North of the highway, the Baw Baw Plateau and the Upper Thomson catchment are largely trackless wilderness, protecting Victoria's most important water supply — old-growth forest of mountain ash, alpine ash and snow gum on the edge of the high country.