Day 65 - Friday 3 March - First full day in Victoria

DAY 65

FRIDAY

3 March 2017 – 

Portland – Cape Bridgewater – Cape Nelson

An early night and a bit of a lay in despite the cockys doing their best to wake us early just what was needed. We eventually pulled ourselves out of bed and organised ourselves for the day ahead. It was cold and grey outside, so it was back to long pants and jumpers.

We packed the car and made our way out to Cape Bridgewater making a brief stop at the seal colony walk, but Paul was suffering from a headache and not up to the 2 hour walk so we continued on to the petrified limestone forest on the cliff top and the blowholes. Neither was particularly spectacular, I did however spy a seal jumping through the waves.

We returned to the main beach of Cape Bridgewater to take some photos before heading into to Portland’s information centre and gathering some brochures about different areas of Victoria. We then went for a walk checking out the port full of logged pine and massive piles of wood chips.

I took photos of the art, tram and old buildings along the street. Some of the buildings reminded me of those in New York and Chicago, large brown stones being used to construct the stately places.

We dropped into to Café Bahloo and had a soothing hot choc and cappuccino before driving on to Cape Nelson where we had our lunch with the millions of march flies. I have never seen so many in one place at least they are docile enough to smack, like a game of frogger.

When we finished lunch we wandered around the lighthouse complex with its various buildings of white weatherboard and red striping. We then made our way back along the coast stopping to check out the lookouts at Yellow Rock, where body boarders were ready to jump in the washing machine of surf. We also stopped at the Eastern Ramparts Lookout to take in the view with the sentry of windfarm turbines busily turning.

We made our way back through South Portland ending up in an entirely different place before finally finding town again. We checked out the Botanical gardens that had a wonderful dahlia flower display. The colours and varieties were just stunning.

We picked up some fish and oysters from the small seafood store, we again weren’t paying $100 for a cray and then drove up the main street, stopping outside Bayview College to take some pics. We moved on to the Portland WWII Memorial Lookout checking out the view of Bass Strait first and then entering the old converted water tower. Inside are many displays of armed forces paraphernalia each presented at different landings as you climb to the very top for a 360 view of the town and Portland Bay.

Once we had seen all, we returned to the bottom, checking out the tram that just happened to be stopped at the bottom when we came out. We returned to the van, unloading our gear and then Paul loaded up his fishing gear and headed down to the jetty to try and catch some fish while I stayed behind sorting the photos from the day’s adventures.