The rain has been pelting down for hours. It’s still bucketing as we set out along a South Gippsland beach, but Alison Lester is intrepid. “I do love walking,” she says. “I love overnight hiking. I just think it’s the best thing. But I didn’t discover it until I was quite old. When I was younger I never had the right gear and I probably took too many things, but now … I just enjoy heading off for a few days and having everything with me.”
The prolific children’s author grew up on a farm near the Victorian town of Foster, not far from here. The views of the sea nestled between hills, instantly recognisable in her 1992 picture book My Farm, were a fixture of Lester’s early years. She still owns a small piece of that farm, about 150 acres, and splits her time between it, her home in Nar Nar Goon and the tiny town of Fish Creek, where she has a shop.
