We had left Rufus tied up in the river overnight with the
plan of having an early fish. Our neighbours penchant for playing AC/DC as loud
as his 1980’s car radio could, until midnight, put a quick end to that idea!
When we did hit the water the two boys and I had a great time with Jack getting
a keeper and Sam and I having to let ours go. We packed up and headed east to
Portland, the town we have unanimously decided is Victoria’s friendliest! I had
discovered Rufus’ engine problem may be the result of a couple of missing O
rings on the fuel couplings so I went to the auto parts shop and not knowing
what size it was the bloke gave me a handful of different sizes for free! We
then proceeded to the centre of town where they have an “Amenities Block” with
some very welcome hot showers, for free. With 4 or 5 days before we hit the
next decent town we filled the larder and the bar and then headed to the info
centre who had a tap designed for vans to use to full up their tanks – again
for free! The fishing reel Santa had given Jack had lost a screw on the bale
arm so we went to the tackle shop to see what they could do and they fixed it
no problem, again for free! We pulled up
on the Huge jetty to have lunch and while De was making it the boys and I went
over to have a look at a trawler being unloaded. Bucket after bucket of fish
were being unloaded but, unfortunately they didn’t offer me any for free...but
we still think it is the friendliest town in Victoria!
From Portland we headed Cape Bridgewater the home of one of
Australia’s largest fur seal colonies. There are three ways to see the colony,
the first and most logical way is by tour boat but at $35/head for adults and
$20 for kids, option two and three were sought. We initially chose option two
that was an relatively flat walk in from the blow hole and petrified forest.
After ohing and ahhing as the waves pounded into and up from the blow hole we
moved onto the petrified forest, that has nothing to do with a forest.
Somebody, a while back, came up with the idea that these were the remains of a
forest that was covered by sand in some cataclysmic environmental event but in
the end it was just a natural seepage through limestone that somehow has
maintained its original name. Regardless it was pretty damn cool especially as
it was just meters from 80m high cliffs that crashed straight into the raging
sea!
The path to option 2 was right there except it was 5km of ‘flat’
pathway while option 2 was 2km of steep pathway......Ok everybody back in Izzy
were taking option 3! I am not sure what the scenery was like on option 1 or 2
but option 3 was spectacular!
We located it on wikicamps and
press the go button. It lead us to a non descript point on the highway so I
checked google maps and found it south of our point with heaps of logging tracks
that looked to be well maintained crisscrossing a massive pine plantation. A
note here that wikicamps did mention to make sure you follow the signs. Not
having come across any signs I headed for the camp, not really a short cut just
a different road in. The track was brilliant and the GPS was following us
really well and took us to a T intersection that asked us to turn left, that
would be followed by a right....problem was as soon as I turned left it jumped
a block and now there was no right. After a U turn the GPS became even more
confused so I decide to follow my nose and headed in the general direction of
where the camp was, maybe 1km away. Up over a bit of a crest and the road got a
little sandy with a nice big dipper to keep it interesting, but my experience
from Aire River reminded me to keep the revs up and not listen to the radio. 5
minutes later De pulled her finger nails out of the door handle and the boys
stopped cheering and we were at Lake Monibeong!
Well for all of the excitement to get there the place was up
there with a dry creek bed as a place to camp! There was a lake there but it
had one tiny track through to it and it looked decidedly uninviting, but it did
have flush toilets!
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