So, what's this all about? See here
Is there a complete list? See here
Raymond Island in the Gippsland lakes was our holiday destination during the second half of the 1970s, after my father died and before I finished school.We were accompanied there at least on the first trip or two by my paternal grandfather (in fact he may have driven us) because the house we stayed in belonged to someone he knew. This marked a break with the past - Merricks and Lorne were both holiday destinations connected with mum's family and their friends.This particular friend had succeeded my grandfather as Chairman of a Victorian state Board, but by this time they were both elderly and quite frail. Bill had retired with his wife to his home town of Bairnsdale in Gippsland and also acquired (or perhaps had always owned) a holiday house on the island.
We would drive down to Bairnsdale to say hello and collect the keys to the house, do some grocery shopping (for reasons that will become apparent) and then drive on to Paynesville. There we would queue up to catch the ferry for the island. From memory there were no sealed roads on the island though the roads in the immediate vicinity of the ferry were well made. A little way along the road heading away from the ferry and into the heart of the island there was a small and somewhat ramshackle pre-fab shack that served as a general store, but with limited stocks and restricted opening hours.
Sometimes on returning to the island my sister and I (who might in fact have travelled across as foot passengers anyway) would be left to buy an ice-cream and walk the rest of the way to the house. As well as the road heading straight ahead there were roads to the left and the right that approximately hugged the shore of the island. The house was a way down the road that went off to the right, just after it had to turn fairly sharply to the left due to imminent running out of island.
The house itself was on a double block but on the rear half (ie, the one set back from the shore). Basically the land was cleared scrub, no garden to speak of, or lawn. Just the house, the garage and a few gum trees. The house and the garage had been knocked together with cement board (or some such non-timber building material). The house was everything you might expect: simple; up about three feet off the ground, accessed by a very simple set of steps, flywire screening everywhere, lino floors, rudimentary kitchen and bathroom facilities, hospital surplus style single beds with lumpy matresses, formica work tops and kitchen furniture, dull paintwork and garish curtaining.
My sister and I thought it was fabulous.
We didn't mind finding the bloody great snake skin wrapped around the front drivers' side wheel of the car the morning after we arrived for our first stay. Evidence of deadly wildlife in the vicinity only added spice to the occasion.
What was a bit of a let down was the discovery that the shore line in the immediate vicinity of the house wasn't suitable for swimming. The shore was kelp-ridden and unappealing. Still we could explore. We packed a lunch and headed off along the shore line to the left (east), walked until we were exhausted without finding anywhere suitable for swimming then headed back for a proper feed (having donated most of what we'd taken with us to a rather aggressive pelican).
Next we ventured in the other direction and round the first curve in the island we found .... a lovely little bay with sandy shore and sandy floor beneath the water. We gave up being explorers and went back to being swimmers. And we made friends with another family staying near the beach ... lots more children (8 in all) and like us from Melbourne.
It was through those children we learned of the fishing to be had off the ferry at dusk. So one day we assembled very basic fishing gear and walked back to the ferry at dusk. The ferry was held up on the island over night and without any security there was no problem gaining access. We weren't the only people; but everyone else was a 'serious' grown up fisherman and we made a tremendous nuisance of ourselves. We had no concept of the need for quiet. We stomped all over the ferry (a sophistaced form of plate steel slung between elongated drums), frankly more interested in seeing the fish swim below us than in hoiking them out. Unfortunately one of us (me, actually) managed to catch one of the fish (a silver bream) with just about the first line we dropped over the side.
The racket we made as the poor thing came up onto the deck was too much for the rest of the fish who fled for somewhere quieter, much to the disgust other people trying to fish. I would imagine they were absolutely delighted that we'd done fishing, got the t-shirt and decided to move onto something new after that one experience.
The ferry is still in place, residents having rejected over and over again any plans to put a bridge across the strait separating Paynesville and the island. It operates during daylight hours to a fixed schedule. For us, travelling during summer, there was always the likelihood of having to queue up and possibly not make the first trip - the ferry's capacity not being great. People could tavel on foot and my sister and I would make the trip either to the island's shop or across to the mainland for milk and bread and other essentials. I doubt my grandfather (born 1905, died 1985) ever envisaged a day when I could sit at my desk in the UK and with the press of a few keys on a lap top computer bring up the timetable for the ferry, but I can and I have and you can find it here.If the shopping on the island was rudimentary the shopping in Paynesville wasn't a whole lot better, so we would make a trip up to Bairnsdale at least once during the holiday. During one such visit I managed somehow and against the odds to pursuade my mother to let me have my ears pierced. They were done in a chemist on the main drag and I spent the rest of the holiday dutifully applying the solution of blue stuff I'd given for cleaning both the wound in each ear and the earings.
During later visits I took my first driving lessons on the island. The experience was enough to teach me that if I were ever to hold a driving licence I'd have to pay someone unrelated to me to teach me how to drive.
Would I go back? Well yes, but it wouldn't be for a long stay. With the best will in the world Raymond Island doesn't have a whole lot to say for itself. According to one source I found it is 760 ha of which about a third is crown land with an established koala population. The island also provides a sanctuary for a variety of birds (though interestingly the pelican isn't among those mentioned in anything I've found). And that's it. On the other hand it will stay on my list of places I've passed through and would choose to pass through at least one more time.
