Day 72 - Friday 10 March - On the Volcano trail

Day 72

Friday

10 March 2017 –

Cavendish – Coleraine – Byaduk - Hamilton

Paul was up early for the loo returning to tell me it was foggy by the river and I would want to check it out, so I dragged myself out and joined him down below taking photos, as he pulled the pots. There was no fog and there were no yabbies.  Oh well.

Seeing we were up we figured we may as well stay up, as much as I would have liked to crawl back into the warm bed. Breakfast and shower out of the way and the car packed we were off to chase waterfalls.

Our first stop was Nigretta Falls where you could view the falls from the top lookout or walk down the stairs to see them from below. Unfortunately, like the yabbies and fog there wasn’t much of a flow, it was more like the trickle of a tap.

We moved on to Wannon Falls only a few k’s away. As we travelled down the road Paul spied an echidna. I was out of the car quick sticks and off to photograph it. It tried its best to hide amongst the branches, though once it realised I was no threat it was happy to be on the move again.

We continued on to Wannon Falls and were again disappointed to see very little water, in fact this time it was more like a dripping tap. We could however, see how beautiful it would be in full flow and were able to scramble over the rocks further upstream to checkout the river.

We then continued our journey on to Coleraine and the Glenelg Fine Chocolate Shop. Yum. Wandering the shop we chose our goodies, paid and then went on to the Aboretum for a view over Coleraine and a quick walk amongst the largest collection of different eucalypts. The trees did their best to cover the view, but we found a gap over a field to take it in.

I had the tourist info out and decided to head on to Byaduk to check out the lava caves, however I directed Paul down a road through Mt Napier National Park and to the peak climb area. We had a quick walk through the forest anyway and then returned down the goat track and sure enough, a short distance down the road was the turn to the Lava Caves.

We had lunch in the car and then went exploring. There were two caves, the first you could descend into, which Paul chose to do. He got to the bottom and looked into the front opening, but without a torch he couldn’t see much. There were plenty of ferns lining the floor happy to live off the black, basalt volcanic rock.

We checked out the second cave from the viewing area and then went to check out the two bridge caves that were essentially one cave with a land bridge. You could see rays of light seeping through from one end to the other.

We followed the loop path back to the car and then drove on through Byaduk, a very sleepy country town with not much to stop for. We set the GPS to Hamilton and followed Tom. We spied an info board pointing out the Tumuli or lava blisters so we darted off the main road to check them out. They are like the Earth’s pimples. Volcanic liquid rock sprays up as it travels down the lava river and mounds of aerated rock are created, some 10m tall. It looks like the locals have just gathered all the rocks and piled them together. Paul climbed one while I wandered checking the various stacks out, some with trees growing from them. They were quite fascinating.

After of rock climbing we continued the adventure on to Hamilton, stopping for fuel and groceries and then we returned to the camp to find a couple of extra vans up near us and being told there would be three more arriving to join them. The caretaker was around taking money so I paid up for two more nights and then we sat outside enjoying the weather, having cheese and drinks and working on the pics while getting to know the neighbours as they streamed in, they all seemed like good fun and figured it would be best to join in on their frivolity.

After dinner, we took our drinks and chairs and joined their circle, chatting and laughing it turned out to be a great evening and we were invited to join them at the pub tomorrow for dinner, seeing we had planned to go anyway it was an easy one to take up.

By 11pm I was ready to call it a night so we retreated to the van.