This is part one of a three part series. Part two is here, and part three is here.

This pandemic has been getting everyone down. I’m no different. I have managed to escape from Canberra a few times – getting up to Dubbo during 2020, and to Narooma during 2021. Both of those are places I would like to go again, so you can expect photos from there at some point.

This time round, however, I decided to go to Merimbula. It’s a great little town on the NSW south coast. Plenty of things to do for people interested in walks, as well as both ocean and more protected beaches for the water bunnies. Fishing in the lake seems to be a regular thing, and the lake is used for commercial oyster farming, so seafood would seem to be a highlight of the area as well. At the right times of year, you can go whale watching from here too. If you’re interested in history, there’s plenty of that in the surrounding district as well, but that wasn’t the point of this trip.

Merimbula Boardwalk

I’ve been here before, and one of the most accessible walks actually starts not far from the town centre. While it is called the Merimbula Boardwalk, only parts of it are actually a boardwalk – a slightly raised walking platform. Significant portions of it are actually gravel walking track. It runs for about 2.5km along one edge of Merimbula lake, from beside the road bridge crossing the lake up to a cafe and boat hire place called Top Lake. On my previous visit I had taken the kids for the walk, and we’d enjoyed a quite pleasant walk and an even more pleasant afternoon tea at the cafe, before completing the return walk.

The walk encompasses a variety of landscape features, and I have tried to capture some of that in the photos I have released. Some of the highlights of the walk for me include being able to watch the crabs in amongst the mangroves, and (depending on the tides) the fish life. I find the mangroves fascinating, but I wasn’t happy with the photographs I got, so I haven’t released any specifically on the mangroves. There are some nice forest-y bits, but I wasn’t happy with very many of those shots either.

I hope you can share the enjoyment of this walk with me through my photographs. There is so much more to this that I cannot tell in a few photographs. Several of the photographs in my next Merimbula set will also be from along the boardwalk, although not actually featuring the boardwalk.

You can see the gallery of Merimbula Boardwalk photographs here. I also have a fairly comprehensive set of scenic mugs and posters from this trip in my shop.