Ocean Views Motel Lakes Entrance

Kalimna sits on the hill between the Princes Highway and the Lakes Entrance waterways, and the Ocean Views Motel is the highway-side motel that lives up to its name: ocean and lake views from the rooms, a position above the town and a short drive down into the Lakes Entrance strip with its boat harbour and fish and chips.

Dogs at the Ocean Views Motel

Per the motel's own pet-friendly page, pet friendly options are available even when the pet-friendly room types show no online availability, and the instruction is to contact the motel directly on (03) 5155 1007 to arrange it. Aggregators add that pets allowed covers dogs and cats only. In practice that makes this a phone-first booking: do not judge availability by the booking engine, ring and confirm which rooms are open to dogs and any fee.

When you ring, make the room ask specific: regulars with dogs request end or ground-floor units with direct outdoor access, which turns the midnight toilet break into a step outside rather a corridor walk past other guests' doors. There is no fenced run or dog wash on the hillside grounds, so sandy paws coming back from the lake need a towel in the car and the lead stays on around the motel.

The walking is the payoff of the position. The tracks below the hill toward the old Kalimna jetty and the lookouts run quiet at dawn and dusk, with lake and Bass Strait views and none of the footbridge crowds, and Jemmy's Point Reserve sits close by for a proper stretch. The Lakes Entrance common and Ninety Mile Beach are minutes down the hill for the bigger walks.

The motel is a big, well-worn Gippsland operator with a long review history: guests mention the ocean and lake views, comfortable beds, friendly check-in and staff, and an occasional dated room that matches the price. Lakes Entrance is Gippsland's family beach town and runs at full noise in summer, so the Kalimna hillside is a quieter berth with the town on call. The drive in from Melbourne is a long one, roughly four hours, which makes a two-night stop the sensible minimum.

Close by with the dogs

The Seacombe wild dog shore on the Gippsland Lakes gives a proper off-leash run by the water, and the Seacombe foreshore walk is the calm-water counterpart. More options sit on the VIC stays guide.