Our two days at Golden Beach was a very relaxing stay. There were very few people in the area during our visit and the temperatures had cooled somewhat to a pleasant 23 to 25C each day.
Golden Beach is a small settlement situated on the beautiful Ninety Mile Beach in Gippsland, Victoria. Most of the town’s residents can easily walk to the beach while campers and RVer’s such as ourselves have 21 sites to choose from along the foreshore. We continue to meet plenty of other Kiwi’s on our travels. The people who owned the local beach store at Golden Beach hailed from Stratford in Taranaki.
We departed Golden Beach on Sunday morning and continued our journey south on the Princess Highway toward Toora. We had decided we would stay Sunday night at the Franklyn Reserve just out of Toora so we had a nice relaxing day stopping in at all the local sights on the way. Franklyn Reserve was one of the top free spots – plenty of grass and shade and right beside a small local river. We certainly slept well again that night – it was a nice quiet area and the temperatures remained low.
Our goal on Monday was to visit Phillip Island, a further hours drive from our Monday overnight stop. Phillip Island measures 10,000 hectares, has a population of 10,000 permanent residents and is connected to the ‘mainland’ by a two-lane bridge. The island is famous for its penguin and seal colonies, its GP Racing track (the first ever Australian Grand Prix was run on Phillip Island on 31 March 1928), its dinosaur digs and the many walks and trails around the island.
Lang Lang Beach on the Western Port Bay
We spend two or so hours on the island having a look around but did not feel enticed to ‘pay’ to look at a seal colony or watch penguins walking to their nest at the end of the day. We can do all that for free at home. In saying that, the island is stunning and we can understand why it attracts so many tourists.
There are very few free camping areas as you get closer to Melbourne so our Monday night stop was at the Lang Lang Caravan Park on the edge of Western Port Bay and directly across the water from French Island National Park. It was very reasonably priced ($22 per night) and again we were surprised that there were very few people in the camp bearing in mind the time of year i.e. school holidays.
Louise, Brian and Rod on their Lang Lang Beach visit
We ended up by staying two nights and receiving a lovely visit from our cruising friends Brian and Louise from Melbourne. In 2012 we undertook a river cruise from Amsterdam to Luxemburg and we met Brian and Louise on the cruise. We have remained in contact since. Thanks guys for taking the time to come down and meet with us. We will see you again early next year.
We head in to Melbourne tomorrow for a one-night visit and to catch with some of the family. A dinner at a local restaurant has been planned so we a really looking forward to our ‘big night out’.
Thursday we will continue our journey southward and onto the Great Ocean Road.
Dearne and Rod's Travel Blog 
I’m just getting caught up on emails and saw the picture of Rod with Louise and Brian. Sure great that you guys could get together, just wish we could have been there too. Keep trucking. So glad you are having such a great time.