Our goal for the day was to visit Brown Lake. Can you guess why it might be called that? It's because the water is brown. Hence the name! Geddit? There's also a Blue Lake, which we didn't visit. I imagine the water there is probably blue.
The thing about Brown Lake is that it collects water which has run off the land around it rather than from a river or stream. The water picks up tannins from the soils and the roots of trees, and this turns the water a rich brown colour, much more like tea than the alternative. See, if I was an Australian Namer of Places I would have called it Tea Lake or Earl Grey Lake or Tetley Lake or something, just to get away from the poo connotations. But no, the Namers of Places came up trumps with Brown Lake, putting it up there with such classics as Sandy Creek and Seventeen Mile Plains.
Of course my favourite is Mount Superbus, the irony being that public transport links are absolutely appalling.
Anyway we got there by ten o'clock in the morning, no mean achievement. Although I'd had another apparent lie-in which felt like a nine o'clocker but was in fact around seven.
The route up there from Dunwich took us up into the dizzy heights of Stradbroke, so about a five minute drive, then down a dirt track to a recreation area with a playground and stinky 'natural' toilet next to a lovely white sand beach where a few people were frolicking in the overcast morning nearly-sun, splashing around in water that was notable for being water-coloured.
Surely, we have the wrong lake here?
But no, when we walked down the beach the water was indeed slightly brown when you looked at it, and very pleasantly warm, and we spent a happy couple of hours frolicking with the other frolickers. Eloise and I swam around and played silly swimming games. Lyra splashed around in the shallows having a very nice time.
We ate a picnic of sausages and snacks and stuff and played on the playground. A lot of people turned up, messed around, ate, and left. In addition to the dolphins and koala of previous days we were treated to the Education Wildlife Moment of the Day, two goannas hanging around, then having rumpy-pumpy, then retreated into the bush to enjoy whatever rosy afterglow it is that goannas enjoy.
In the afternoon: camp-based relaxation.
In the evening: food, wine, and a stiffening wind which had us a bit worried for a while, but our worries were alleviated by more wine, then some music and more wine.
The wind was quite strong by the time that we went to bed, but it mysteriously failed to disrupt my gentle slumber.
No comments:
Post a Comment