GIPPSLAND stretches southeast of Melbourne from Western Port Bay to the New South Wales border, between the Great Dividing Range and Bass Strait. Green and well watered, it's been the centre of Victoria's dairy industry since the 1880s. South Gippsland is also, in contrast, the site of vast brown-coal deposits between Moe and Traralgon in the Latrobe Valley, where power stations generate most of the state's electricity, while offshore, Bass Strait wells exploit natural gas and crude oil reserves, with several gas-processing and oil-stabilizing plants disfiguring the coastline. South Gippsland also has Victoria's most popular national park, Wilsons Promontory , or "The Prom", a hook-shaped landmass jutting out into the strait, with some superb scenery and fascinating bushwalks. In the east, around the Gippsland Lakes and Ninety Mile Beach , the region is less industrialized; and just beyond Orbost-Marlo the unspoilt coastline of the Croajingolong National Park - with its rocky capes, high sand dunes and endless sandy beaches - stretches to the New South Wales border.