As we venture further from home and closer to our destination: Melbourne we are beginning to travel serious distances. This expedition took us over 2,400 kms. Just the trip home from San Remo was 1,000km plus. And this doesn't include the walking! The further we go the
more we expect to make it all worthwhile.
Thankfully the delights of Gippsland, the Prom and Phillip Island were
outstanding.
Thursday 5
September: Seaspray
We all left Sydney
early in 2 cars as usual, (except for John C being proudly at the wheel of his
recently acquired Prado) arriving at Seaspray in the early afternoon. Here we found our house at 17 Shoreline Drive a 2 storey, modern design, well appointed and with pretty good views of Bass
Strait through undulations in the sand dunes across the road. Pretty much the best house in town!
We walked down-town
to the surf club and abandoned caravan park, not much here!
For dinner, we pulled
out a frozen lasagne: chicken mince to cater for meat allergies but alas
including capsicum which had to be carefully removed for those with capsicum
allergy.
After dinner we had
our first game of Go to Hell!.
Friday 6
September: Seaspray
After our walk we
drove up to Golden Beach, a very nice community with a little set of shops and
a Town Hall with volunteers keeping the gardens tidy. Pride of place is the restaurant/real estate
agency building housing Olivers’ kitchen and Robyn Toogood Real Estate
respectively. Olivers’ provides a
routine cuisine for the locals but surprisingly, the proprietor Brigitte (from
Mauritius) also serves a delicious Mauritius curry – what else? We ordered 5 which Brigitte graciously
prepared on the spot for us for a very modest charge – delicious! During our meal we chatted to the co-owner of
the building and neighbour Robyn Toogood.
She took a particular liking to Di who was teasing her about her
surname. We later worked out that
everyone working in the building including the cook and waitress were – well – probably
not attracted to men shall we say!
Saturday 7
September: Yanakie
Today we headed down
to Port Albert and found a very quiet place living off its former glory as the
major port for Gippsland during the Gold Rush and migration eras. Many beautiful buildings remain from this
time but very few people live here and business is seasonal. The only places
open being the Gippsland Regional Maritime Museum and the Pub, the oldest
continually licensed premises in Victoria!
We visited both. The weather was
windy but the rain mostly held off.
Our walk comprised
about 7 kms all up from Stockyard Point (the Port) to Old Port Road along a
very good track adjacent to an extensive expanse of mangroves and flats
stretching far into the bay. We could
appreciate that the entry into the Port by sailing ships would have been far
from easy winding through the sand flats and mangroves. We then pressed on to
Yanakie. Our house being very much anticipated as the most expensive of our
stay, a waterfront cottage in the French Provincial style – the gateway to the
iconic Wilson’s Promontory. We had some
difficulty finding the property which has no sign, and with the winding
driveway being grassed over from lack of use, but we eventually arrived. The place was - different. Opinions ranged from quirky to a dump. We found a fibro cottage “decorated” with a
dusty clutter of collectibles including a 2 metre long biplane suspended from
the ceiling, a large model yacht taking up the entire dining room table, about
25 bronze propellers large and small around the walls and various nautical and
French nick-nacks. On the plus side we
had a log fire, a good flat screen TV and a reasonable kitchen. The location of the house on a low hill
overlooking Shallow Inlet was superb. Of
course proximity to the Prom was excellent – just a 15 minute drive.
A few of us walked
the 2.2km Duck Point Loop at Yanakie which has excellent views of Corner Inlet
and the northern shore of the Promontory.
This was Election
Night. We watched as the votes rolled in
for Tony Abbott and pondered the bizarrely cheerful concession of defeat by
Kevin Rudd.
Sunday 8 September: Yanakie
Today we entered the
iconic Wilsons Promontory National Park. The first surprise is that entry is free, apparently due to an election promise which (surprisingly perhaps) was
honoured.
Driving along well
kept sealed roads we encountered pockets of wildlife, a bit like an African
game park in its diversity and numbers, but these are marsupials: kangaroos,
wallabies, wombats, echidna and also emu; all out and about and carrying on
their natural lives in broad daylight.
Soon we arrived at
the main town and Park base – Tidal River.
There is a National Park office, a canteen/gift shop and luxury cabins
and camp sites all strung out along the river.
A new boardwalk including fishing platforms has been built alongside
the stream. Our first walk was
from the car park at Tidal River over the bridge and along the track to the
Lilly Pilly Car Park, up to the Mt Bishop turn-off, several of us going up Mt
Bishop. Then around the LillyPilly Gully Circuit and back to Tidal River; about 15 kms – 3 ½ hours. The gully is
a beautiful walk with many ferns. Higher
sections have distant coastal views. The
coastal views from Mt Bishop, a granite tor of 300 metres are stunning. After lunch at the
canteen, we viewed more wildlife from the car and finally walked the Millers Landing
loop of 4.4 kms near the park entrance.
Millers Landing represents the southernmost mangrove area of mainland
Australia. Here, we were delighted to
see an echidna on the track. These
marsupials are very shy and hide their heads if sensing danger apparently believing
that if they can’t see us we can’t see them!
Monday 9
September: Yanakie
Back to the beautiful
Prom. This time we left a car at Darby River and drove up the road to Darby
Saddle. We walked from here to Tongue
Point and then back to the car at Darby River – about 9.4 kms over a 3 hour
period. Outstanding coastal views are
evident all along the way but particularly from Sparkes Lookout, 200 metres
above the track. Lookout Rocks and from the end of Tongue Point where you
can look both north and south up and down the Prom coast. Enormous granite boulders, white sand and the
blue ocean of Bass Strait catch the eye.
Unfortunately, Di’s dicky knee played up a bit and she missed the
section to the end of Tongue Point but she made it back to the car OK. After driving back to
Tidal River for lunch we saw a wombat Mum and her baby carefully crossing the
road. Later in the day,
despite gale force conditions, the two Johns scaled the Prom’s highest peak –
Mt Oberon at 600 metres. The climb is an
easy 6.8 kms return mostly along a service road for the communications towers
atop the mountain. The last couple of
hundred metres is a scramble to the top of the tor. The view up there is breathtaking, but we
really had to be careful not to be blown off the top of the mountain, such was
the force of the wind.
Tuesday 10
September: San Remo
Today we farewelled
the dust mites of Yanakie and headed off for our last destination – San
Remo. The original plan was to stop
along the way to walk the Bass Coast Rail Trail from Wonthaggi as far as Kilcunda
and then pick up the George Bass Coastal Walk to Punchbowl Road, San Remo. However, the weather was terrible - rain and
wind. Plan B was to have a coffee at
Wonthaggi to see what was going to happen with the weather. Our coffee shop was packed with primary
school children who had won a skipping contest and a morning tea was their reward. We eventually set off in rain and gale force
wind from near the Tourist Bureau heading just past Kilcunda about 2 kms into
the Bass Trail. After a few kms the rain
eased up and the sun emerged. It is a
great idea to turn a disused railway line into a trail, and easy good
walking. All the infrastructure is still
there, the culverts and bridges.
The gale force winds
were still blowing and the weather uncertain so we decided to forego the last
section to Punchbowl Road and proceeded to Cowes to collect our house keys from
the agent. We were surprised to discover
that due to an error on Google maps our house was not at Panorama Drive,
Woolamai but Panorama Drive, San Remo.
However the place turned out to be outstanding: modern, spacious and
well equipped with panoramic views of the Phillip Island Bridge and beyond to
French Island. John H and Di went
for a discovery walk around San Remo, a beautiful town and found an
excellent local pub enjoying a wine in front of the log fire. John C went fishing.
Wednesday 11
September: San Remo
At first we attempted
the Woolamai Loop but soon realised that the weather was too dodgy to risk it
(Bass Strait gale and rain) so we bailed out for now and proceeded to
Churchill Island. This is an old farm
from colonial times with its own self-contained island jutting into Westernport
Bay. We walked the perimeter observing
many Cape Barren Geese and big red hairy Scottish longhorn cattle grazing
contentedly in the drizzle. We
discovered an excellent coffee/tourist shop where we enjoyed a break. As you would expect in Australia, the lady
behind the counter was Japanese born in Malaysia and full of good Aussie tourist
information. We had lunch in Cowes
at a cafe next to our agent and then had a bit of a walk around and Geri and
Rose did some shopping.
Di and John H were
dropped off near Newhaven and walked back across the bridge in the howling wind
and rain adjourning for shelter and sustenance to the aforesaid pub. Rose cooked up a small flathead for her man
which he had caught the night before.
Thursday 12
September: San Remo
Today we walked the
Woolamai Loop which was outstanding and we were glad we waited for better
weather. We weren't far from San Remo and could see the bridge a few kms away but the cape was barren and wild.
Next stop was the
Chocolate Factory a tourist trap run by an Indian called Panny. The chocolate was ridiculously priced but the
place had a reasonable cafe where we had morning tea and coffee.
After some fish and
chips at the co-op near the Phillip Island Bridge we drove to Pyramid Rock and
walked another 5 kms along the beautiful coast.
The two Johns spent the
afternoon at the Vietnam War Museum which is an interesting place but the
history, especially relating to National Service is still all too recent to be objective. They are particularly proud
to own what is described as the only complete Canberra bomber in the
world. “Complete” means they have all
the pieces which a couple of volunteers are laboriously attempting to
re-assemble in a warehouse at the rear of the museum.
Dinner was at the aforementioned
San Remo Pub just near the bridge. Curry night $13.50 - a very good deal!
Friday 13
September: Drive Home
Today we headed back
north to Sydney – John C, Rose and Geri straight home in the Prado – John H and
Di via our friend Hugo at Merimbula.
No comments:
Post a Comment