Paynesville is a tourist/holiday resort town in the Gippsland

Gippsland

Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...

 region of Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Paynesville had a population of 2967. The town is located 293 kilometres (182 mi) east of the state capital, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. It is known as the boating capital of Victoria.

History

Paynesville was originally called Toonalook which is an aboriginal name for place of many fish. The Post Office opened on 8 November 1879 as Toonalook and was renamed Paynesville in 1886 by the Dickson family who still reside in the area.

Raymond Island

Raymond Island

Raymond Island

Raymond Island is a small island in the Gippsland Lakes in eastern Victoria, Australia, about from Melbourne. The island is approximately long by wide, and is just off the coast, across from the town of Paynesville...

 is a small island accessible via the Raymond Island Ferry. The island has no particular features of interest and is predominantly residential but it has been at the centre of continued local debate over the construction of a bridge to allow for better access and further development.

The Town today

Paynesville is a thriving town well served by a range of shops, cafes, a bank and a newly built community centre and library. Much of the town's recent growth has stemmed from the development of a network of canals and prestige homes which have created two artificial islands within the township. Burrabogie Island is north of the waterfront shopping district, and Fort King Island is a residential area north of Burrabogie Island. Although Burrabogie and Fort King Island are separated only by an approximate 5 meter wide man-made canal, they are the most distant points in Paynesville by road.

Sports

Paynesville is also well represented in the sporting arena, with bowls, tennis and netball clubs in the town, as well as a thriving local football and cricket club, the latter having won back to back Grand Finals in the Bairnsdale Cricket Association for 2007 and 2008. The town has an Australian Rules football team competing in the East Gippsland Football League

East Gippsland Football League

The East Gippsland Football League is an Australian rules football League in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia.-History:The East Gippsland FL in its present incarnation began in 1974 with the merger of the Gippsland Football League and the Bairnsdale District Football League...

. The team last won a premiership in 1984.

Fishing

It is located on the eastern end of Lake Victoria, near Lake King, two of the larger Gippsland Lakes

Gippsland Lakes

The Gippsland Lakes are a network of lakes, marshes and lagoons in east Gippsland, Victoria, Australia covering an area of about 600 km2. The largest of the lakes are Lake Wellington , Lake King and Lake Victoria. They are fed by the Avon, Thomson, Latrobe, Mitchell, Nicholson and Tambo...

 and is a good launching point for exploring the lakes. It provided access to some of the best fishing to be found in Victoria, However it is known that this is far from true due to over fishing.

Tourism

Other tourist attractions in the area include:

• Raymond Island
  Raymond Island
  Raymond Island is a small island in the Gippsland Lakes in eastern Victoria, Australia, about from Melbourne. The island is approximately long by wide, and is just off the coast, across from the town of Paynesville...
  
   - well known locally for its large koala
  Koala
  The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....
  
   population.
• Ninety Mile Beach
  Ninety Mile Beach, Victoria
  The Ninety Mile Beach is a sandy stretch of south-eastern coastline of Victoria, Australia along the Gippsland Lakes region of East Gippsland on Bass Strait. The beach is just over long running northeastward from a spit near Port Albert to the man-made channel at Lakes Entrance...
  
   - accessible by boat from the town.
• The Lakes National Park
  The Lakes National Park
  The Lakes National Park is a national park in Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne....
  
  

Nearby towns include Bairnsdale

Bairnsdale, Victoria

Bairnsdale is a small city in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. With a population at the 2006 census of 11,282, it is a major regional centre of eastern Victoria along with Traralgon and Sale....

, Metung

Metung, Victoria

Metung is a small town in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, 314 km east of the state capital Melbourne. It is situated between the larger towns of Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance. It is on a small peninsula 31 km south-east of Bairnsdale, separating Lake King and Bancroft Bay on the...

, Eagle Point, and Lakes Entrance.

Education

Carey Baptist Grammar School

Carey Baptist Grammar School

Carey Baptist Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, Christian, international, day school consisting of four campuses in Victoria, Australia - Kew , Donvale , the Carey Sports Complex in Bulleen and an outdoor education camp near Paynesville in eastern Gippsland called Carey...

has an outdoor education camp near Paynesville called Carey Toonallook (sic).