Australia 2007

Monday, October 22 – Robe to Port Fairy

We were up early and watched some of the Dallas NFL game while we had breakfast. It was cool, grey overcast and quite breezy this morning. We headed out and stopped for a couple pictures on the way out of town. The terrain was flat with large fields of cattle, sheep, and horses. We had to listen to CD’s as all we could get on the radio, was talk shows. We paralleled the water until we hit Beachport and then turned inland a bit, along B101. We stopped for gas at Millicent ($1.29/ltr) and by this time it was quite cool, blowing and raining. The temperature was 13 degrees.
We got back on the road toward Mount Gambier, which basically ran between two mounds of dirt with large trees growing. The speed limit was 110 kmh on a road we would have had an 80km limit on. We passed a large wind farm around Tantanoola, and a few miles later there was a dramatic change in scenery. We came upon large stands of pine, and upon further observation, realized they were a planted forest, as the trees were all in lines. We also started to pass some large logging trucks, and just before Mount Gambier, we passed a plywood plant, and several miles later, a saw mill. This kind of vegetation continued all the way to Portland. Several of the stands were recently cut and many others were just re-forested.

When we got to Mount Gambier, we decided to take the coast road on to Portland and Port Fairy. When we turned off the main road, we saw a sign for the Blue Lake lookout. The Blue Lake is a reservoir in the natural cone of an extinct volcano. There are a few lakes in this area of the cone, so we drove up to look. It was very cool and windy, so we didn’t stay long. We ended up circling the whole rim of the volcano on our way out to Port MacDonnell. We passed into the state of Victoria just before we got to Nelson, and the speed limit dropped to 100kmh. We stopped here at an info centre for a short break. We also found out that there was a time change going into Victoria, so we had to move our watches ahead 30 minutes. As we travelled along toward Portland, through the Pine forests, we saw lots of birds that we thought were parrots, but are actually Galah’s, which is a type of Cockatoo. We also saw a single Emu and then a group of about 5 a few miles later. We got to Portland about 1 pm and stopped at a Safeway to pick up a couple things. It was raining quite hard now, so we drove down to the seashore, and parked near the boat launch to eat our lunch.

After lunch we got back onto the A1 highway and drove the 42km to Port Fairy. When we got to town we drove to the Info centre and found some brochures for motels. We drove to the Central Motel and got a room for $99. After getting settled in, we drove down to a place called Battery Hill, where they have old gun emplacements that used to protect the town and also warn floundering ships of the reefs. We took a few pictures and then drove around to see the town. We went to Griffiths Island, which is a bird sanctuary and has an old lighthouse on it. It is a walking island that you can only get to via a foot bridge. We started to walk the circuit around the island, but the wind and rain started to pick up again, so we turned around and went back to the car. We drove along the coast again and spotted two people out in the surf with surfboards. We watched for awhile and took a couple pictures before heading off again. We drove a few miles and then turned back into town and returned to our motel. It had stopped raining, so we went for a walk around the town to see what was about. We checked out the restaurants to find a spot for dinner. While we were out, we crossed paths with an Aussie couple who were also checking the menus outside restaurants. They were staying at a Caravan Park and were heading west. They couldn’t find anything they thought was reasonable, so were heading off to check out a couple pubs. We continued along and found a place that seemed reasonable and the menu looked good, so we went back to the room so I could put on some long pants. We headed back to the restaurant and had a pretty decent meal. I had Chicken Penne Pasta with a mushroom cream sauce. Ina had Mediterranean Pasta with onion, pepper and spinach, with black olives and feta cheese. Both were very good. The restaurant started to get busy, so we passed on desert. We had bought some Caramello Koala’s, which are chocolate covered caramel in the shape of Koala bears, and headed back to the room to have one. We watched some TV and went to bed early. The weather doesn’t sound like it is going to get better until the end of the week. Oh well, we have had 5 weeks of excellent weather so far, so can’t get too upset.