A two-lane road leads from Australia’s ancient limestone mountain caves in Buchan down to East Gippsland’s 90-mile strip of uninterrupted beach. It is lined with a burnt mosaic.
There are few remaining clues that Lakes Entrance was included in the story of Australia’s worst fire season ever.“[The media] over-dramatized it,” said Charlie Grech, who owns Blue Riviera Boat Hire with his wife, Theresa. “I think they scared a lot of people too much. Like, ‘Don’t go there because you’re gonna get burned,’ sort of thing, which is not the case.”
Though the flames never got closer than within 12 miles of Lakes Entrance, winds buried the community in thick, choking smoke and showered it with firebrands for days. About 250 miles of arterial roads in the state of Victoria have been damaged or threatened by mudslides, floods and downed trees, including the mountain roads above the waterfront town.
In the week since the threat to the town subsided, repeated rain showers have cleaned the air and reduced fire activity in the region. “I’ll probably have to get a full-time job somewhere else just to get us through this year,” said Ricky Grech, 24, who used to work as a shipbuilder but now runs his own charter fishing company off the same dock as his parents Theresa and Charlie.