First day in beautiful Metung

Today was my first full day in Metung, and it's beautiful weather. It's sunny, not a cloud in the sky, a bit breezy, which is making it a little bit cooler than it might otherwise have been.

It's probably in the low 20s after a fairly mild night, I'm guessing around 15 or 16 degrees. I'm sitting in the office of the house that I'm staying at, and it has the most gorgeous view.

I'm looking out over Bancroft Bay, which is one of the boat marina areas in Metung, the main area, in fact. And I'm looking across at a peninsula called Boole Poole. And there's quite a few houses over there, but the peninsula is totally inaccessible by vehicle.

You can only get there by boat. But there's quite a few houses, so I'm quite amazed at how they managed to build all of those. And some of them are quite sturdy, beautiful, modern homes.

And to the back of that peninsula is another stretch of the Gippsland Lakes. And just past that are the sand dunes that on the other side is the Bass Strait, the Southern Ocean.

It really is a gorgeous part of the world. It's quite a small village. Permanent population is only around 1,500, but there'd be a lot more people here at the moment during school holidays.

And next week with Easter, it may be, I'm guessing, around 4000 or 5000 people here. But otherwise, for the rest of the year, it's quite a secluded getaway point that would be a lovely place for a holiday for someone who just wants to enjoy the lake views.

Or if you're into boating and fishing, they're certainly activities that you can do around this area.

I went to the local market this morning. There were probably 20 or so stalls. And it was quite a well-run and well-organised market with a wide variety of goods.

There was some artisan bread. There was olive oil, honey, some distillery products, and quite a few other things. I didn't actually buy anything. I thought about getting some venison sausages because I quite like venison sausages, but they were rather expensive. And I stocked up on meat before I came to the house where I'm staying as part of the Aussie Housesitters arrangements. I'm looking after two cute little Shih Tzu poodle cross dogs.

They're white. One's entirely white. The other one's white with a black nose. So at least I'm able to tell them apart. They're brothers. They're about seven years old, and their names are Bob and Marley.

House-sitting is a great way to travel, and I'll do another piece on that in the near future, summing up some of the places that I've been to and the pros and cons of doing it. But there's a lot more pros than there are cons. It's actually a great way to travel.

Thanks for listening. I'll be back later on. This is Michael Gorey from Gorey Travels.