Mallacoota

After getting the all-clear from Juddy's vet last week, we packed up Loretta and hit the road with our good mates, making our way to Mallacoota, about an hour's drive from Eden and just over the border into Victoria. We're in Bidawal country, and what beautiful country it is.

Mallacoota's known as a bit of a fishing destination, with legendary "monster" flathead lurking in the two lakes that make up Mallacoota Inlet. I don't know about monster fish but there were two monster Labradors with us on our fishing trips, very loudly letting us know that putting perfectly edible food onto a hook and flinging it into the water was nothing short of madness. So much for peace and serenity. But raucous Labradors aside, the fishing has been very good and has provided dinner for the past couple of nights.

We were surprised to discover that nestled in the bush in Mallacoota is a huge concrete bunker that was integral to Australia's security during the Second World War. Being in an isolated corner of Victoria, closer to New Zealand and Antarctica than any country likely to attack us (if you don't count Tasmania), it seems a bit of a strange place to build an impregnable war bunker.

But the bunker was actually the headquarters of RAAF coastal intelligence, providing surveillance in the area to keep the sea lanes open. Between 1942 and 1943, Japanese submarines were operating off the east coast and were responsible for the loss of 22 allied ships, twelve of those Australian. The Japanese subs carried "floatplanes" which were launched at sea using catapults and were used for surveillance. A series of "radio shacks" in the bunker listened in on the surveillance intelligence collected by the Japanese subs, decoded it and transmitted it to defence headquarters in Melbourne.

The bunker is now a small museum, unfortunately closed when we were moseying around. But we were able to wander around the outside of the building and take a few pics.

We had a family conference to decide which photos to post, but there were too many to choose from. The Labs voted for the pics of them snoozing with their friends, Jazz and Frankie, in an attempt to prove they were not going berserk when the fishing was taking place.