On our trip this time our goal was to go somewhere that we hadn’t been to before. We had a look at a map and decided on Lake Garawongera. We did this visit after visiting the Kirrar Sandblow, and also stopped at Happy Valley to get an ice block from the shop there. The Happy Valley shop had a huge deck and eating area outside and looked like a nice place to buy lunch from.

The track on the way from Happy Valley to Lake Garawongera was fine, with no tricky bits to get through. The other side of it though from Lake Garawongera down to Poyangun was a bit rougher. One part of the track had a log built into the track that was a bit tricky to get over. Both cars made it through fine though.

Arriving at Lake Garawongera, there was a picnic area with quite a few shaded tables. We choose a table underneath a shelter because it wasn’t covered with leaves, and had local wildlife joining us to check out what we were doing – a goanna, a large skink, and a bird who sung to us.

This is what the lake looks like – there’s a beach section, and water that is yellow in colour. Once we were in the water I did notice a slight smell, I’m guessing from the reeds or trees surrounding the lake. We set up our shade shelter and had a great time swimming and building sandcastles.

There were a few other groups of people coming through while we were there, two had a look and then left again, one had a quick swim and then left, and one stayed for a while but went further down the beach. So while we didn’t have the place entirely to ourselves, it was a lot quieter than other lakes.

As things went on this trip, we stayed until I got worried about the sun and made the kids get out of the water. One thing I learned from this trip is that water doesn’t have to be perfect for the kids to have fun. Just because it isn’t Lake McKenzie and the water isn’t perfectly clear doesn’t mean that we won’t all enjoy it.