The quietest place I've ever stayed in Victoria

Six hours east of Melbourne, past Bairnsdale, past Lakes Entrance, past the point where the highway gives way to winding forest roads, there's a lodge on the edge of a lake so still it looks like glass.

Gypsy Point Lakeside sits on an inlet near Mallacoota — Victoria's most remote coastal town. It's the kind of place where you arrive, put your bags down, and realise you're speaking more quietly without meaning to. The bush comes right to the edge of the water. The birdlife is constant. The silence between the birds is extraordinary.

We've stayed here on our Mallacoota trips and it's become one of our favourite places in Victoria — not just near Mallacoota, but anywhere. The facilities are excellent, the meals match the setting, and the feeling of being completely immersed in nature is genuine rather than performed.

Mallacoota itself is a sleepy fishing village worth the long drive — hire a boat on the inlet, catch flathead, eat at the pub, watch the pelicans. We have been there many times and it remains near the top of our travel wishlist every year.

I wrote up the full drive, where to stop, what to do, and why this town deserves your visit more than most.

The Drive to Mallacoota: Six Hours East for a Town That Time Forgot

See you next Friday.

— Robert