Blogs from Portland, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

Third Quarter - Discovery Bay & Mount Richmond With another rest day in Nelson under my belt - and another week's worth of supplies at my disposal, courtesy of a food parcel I had sent ahead from Melbourne a few weeks earlier - I was ready to tackle the remaining 111km of the Great South West Walk, which would mean following the coast for six straight days (unless I chose to take the inland detour over Mount Richmond, which would add a further 12km). So after stuffing my face full of hot food from the Nelson Kiosk one last time, I followed the River Road out of town to be confronted by the awesome sight of Discovery Bay's Ocean Beach stretching off into the distance on either side - my first glimpse of the Southern Ocean ... read more

Fresh from my week on the Great Ocean Walk, I headed to the regional centre of Warrnambool to stock up with another week's worth of supplies, before continuing along the coast by coach to Portland, where I had ambitious plans for another biathlon of sorts - only this time instead of cycling and drinking my chosen disciplines would be walking and paddling. With school holidays (and the ensuing stampede for campsites that they inevitably bring) fast approaching, I had set myself the challenge of hiking 250km and paddling a further 50km in a kayak in the eighteen days remaining before the start of the Easter long weekend - which appropriately enough would fall on the evening of April 1st. The way I saw it, anyone still out adventuring by that date truly would be an April ... read more

From Warrnambool we travelled to Port Fairy a small, but lovely fishing village. We stopped and enjoyed the boats in the harbour including the Squid boats. We started looking for campsites and looked one up called Sawtell Reserve. So headed in that direction not knowing if it was going to be available or not. It got too late. So we stopped at a wayside stop for the night. I organized a time to meet up with a bloke in Portland to show us the Gannets. Next morning we met and told us there was a great spot for camping at Sawtell reserve. Thanks mate. Brian took us out to Point Danger Gannet Colony and even let us get within 20 ft of them. He had plenty of great information on the Gannets and the surrounding area. ... read more

Waking to the songs of the bush birds, was the perfect avian alarm clock. As we were packing up, we could feel the warmth of the day getting up, so good to see blue sky sun after 5 days of cloudy rain. Setting off with another welcome tailwind behind, us under the warm autumnal shiny thing in the sky. it was one of those perfect days on planet Earth. We were up on our way, on the open road and there was magik at our fingers, the day was bristling with beautiful energy. It was a very pleasant 15 ks, of back roads before we re-joined "Highway One" at Mount Richmond. An extinct volcano for an incredible 2 million years, Mount Richmond Volcano has been covered in sand, blown from Discovery Bay for millennia, so there ... read more

Yesterday we had the most fantastic weather. Just a beautiful day. We had camped at Hynes Reserve. A good cheap camp with power and showers( the hot water did not work) We booked for 2 nights as a base for the Grampions. Set out the morning north and then east through a gap in the mountains and over a saddle to Halls Gap. Stopped on the way at a lookout point - Reeds Point - and took some wonderful photos looking down on the basin between the ranges. Quite spectacular. We moved on to Halls Gap and had out sandwich lunch there before doubling back about 10km to turn north to a lookout point we had missed. The photo of Liesel and I is taken from there. Very high up looking down on the valley. Amazing ... read more