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Published: November 29th 2012
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These small coast-side towns are all truly lovely spots. Kingston comes very close to the very definition of peace and we enjoyed dipping into the icy ocean, cycling to the lighthouse and over to the small creek-surrounded island with its ‘human involvement’ sundial. Kingston is also home to the Big Lobster. What can I say about that… it’s… a big lobster…
Our next stop, the fishing port of Robe, was my favourite. It’s got proper old country charm and a lovely laid-back atmosphere. What a pleasure it was to go sit by the pretty beach, go meandering along the main road and duck in and out of the wine shops and galleries (I love the work of glass artist Tim Shaw www.timshawglass.com). Robe has an abundance of old stone cottages (not something you see very much in Australia!) and the cutest bookshop you can imagine (housed in a renovated old shed, complete with quirky touches and home-baked cakes). In the evening, we went for a drive around Robe and found that it is actually a lot bigger than it first appears to be. There’s an obelisk on the coastal rocks, several secluded beaches dotted around and a nearby
conservation park. By all accounts, Robe gets incredibly busy over the Christmas period, so I’m glad that we were there at a quiet time.
Our next stop was Cape Bridgewater where, for the first time in five months, Dean’s surf board finally touched water again! Isn’t it ironic that the waters of Australia are either warm and croc/stinger-infested or safe but freezing cold?! Either way we had fun and, despite Victoria’s cold water temperatures, I can see a few surfing trips to Torquay coming up. On the up-side, it’s cool enough for me to buy chocolate again without fear of it melting in the back of the van.
Before we reached Cape Bridgewater, we had our final time change with the clocks going forward half an hour. We are now well and truly on the home stretch and it will take less than two tanks of gas to reach Melbourne! I must, however, remind myself that the trip is not yet over and that even the last week is to be enjoyed to the max.
I just love that I’ve morphed into this person who, on arrival in a new town,
walks into a public bathroom that has a cold shower and thinks “cool, now we have all we need”. That definitely was NOT me at the start of this trip :-)
That night we camped near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm. At its completion in 2008, it was the largest wind farm in Victoria and it certainly is impressive. Waking up and opening the van door to see and hear the huge turbines was a surreal experience. I’ve never been able to understand why there is such controversy over wind farms. Even the Lonely Planet talks of the ‘eye sore’ that is the field of turbines. I don’t think they are visual pollution at all and actually find them majestic and peaceful. It’s clean energy without fuel consumption or air pollution, and the land can still be used for agriculture. Dean tells me that he has heard of people having bad reactions from living very close to wind farms, but then I would imagine that living next to traditional energy sources such as power lines would be much worse for one’s health. If anyone knows something I should know about this, please do tell me.
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