An Inexpensive Holiday

Lynne and I have always made a practise of holidaying in a new place each year. We've never gone to the same place twice. Until now.

Last year, because I was teaching a brand new Creative Writing class, we postponed our holiday until November so that I wouldn't have to break the course midway through the first term, when we normally go away. We went to Burrill Lake (the emphasis is on the second syllable so it sounds a bit like Brill) just south of Ulladulla. We're going back again in March.

We stayed at the Lake Edge Holiday Units which, as the name suggests, are right on the edge of Burrill Lake. If you wanted to take your boat with you (and one guy did while we were there) they even have their own jetty.

There are plenty of things to see and do. Lake Edge has its own salt water pool, it's a short, flat walk from Burrill Beach, it's within reach of Mogo Zoo, Pigeon House Mountain, and is just 10K south of beautiful Mollymook Beach which became our favourite swimming spot while we were there. There's also a rather surprising museum at Lake Tabourie, just down the road.

Mogo Zoo isn't what you'd expect from a "small" country zoo. First, it isn't small, though that's what we expected to find. The animal species are diverse and rare. They have red pandas, white lions, a snow leopard, heaps of meerkats, and all manner of other beasties. They also have lecture tours at no extra cost which are both informative and interesting. A word of warning though. If you're the sort of person who closes one eye while you look through your camera's viewfinder, don't photograph the Sumatran tigress. I did, and while I was focusing she peed on me. Yech! At least, I leapt out of the way far enough to save the camera.

Pigeon House Mountain is also a top spot to visit, although you'd need to be fairly fit to complete the walk to the summit when you get there. It's about 28K from Burrill Lake, mostly on gravel roads. We drove out there in a little Toyota Yaris with no problems, but if you don't like unsealed roads, this one isn't for you.

So why am I writing about this on a U3A page? It's not to brag about what we did on our holidays, and it's not even to tell you what a beautiful, interesting location it is. It's to tell you about the great rates available for seniors.

Lake Edge have one- and two-bedroom units available (plus one larger unit) and, although the prices are quite low, seniors get an additional 10% discount, so you can get your unit from as little as $72 a day, or $504 a week. There are probably some better deals out there, but I haven't heard of one in a comparable location. Those were the prices at time of writing (late 2008) so you'll need to check in case they have changed since then.

You can get full particulars, with lots of photographs of the units and the locality, by CLICKING HERE to visit the Lake Edge web site.

If you have a holiday location that looks like a good deal for U3A members I'll be happy to add it to our web page. Click on the Webmaster link on our home page to email the details to me.

              —David Evans