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Published: January 30th 2009
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Pillar Point walk
Norman Beach & Mt Oberon We had planned on heading inland after Philip Island to try and find a free campsite in
Moondarra State Park, as staying at Philip Island was not cheap and Wilsons Promontory would also be relatively expensive. However, a woman at the caravan park in Philip Island had told us about a free campground at Bear Gully in Cape Liptrap Coastal Park not far from Wilsons Promontory. It was also expected to warm up a bit and the coast was definitely the place to be. However, when we got close to Bear Gully late on Saturday morning, a Ranger coming the other way informed us that all the campsites had been taken due to the long weekend rush. Luckily, we rang a campground at Shallow Inlet just outside Wilsons Promontory, and they had a site available for us because the person who had booked for the weekend had not fronted on Friday night, so they had lost their site. The campground was only basic but had toilets, were nice and shady and only cost $10 per night, so we snapped it up. Shallow Inlet is renowned for kitesurfing and is also the home of the current world speed record made by a sailing craft
according to the brochures where windsurfers reached around 45 knots and some other high speed sailing craft reached 48 knots in 16-18 knots of wind on 8 March 2007. I've since discovered that the kitesurfing world record now stands at over 50 knots but wasn't achieved here. Having said all that and although it was quite windy, we didn't see any wind or kite surfing while we stayed at Shallow Inlet! We did however, see lots of kite surfing when we had dinner on the St Kilda foreshore a week or so earlier.
On Sunday, we drove down to Walkerville, on the western side of Waratah Bay and went on the short Overlook Walk as well as the walk to the remnants of the Lime Kilns which provided lime supplies to Melbourne's building industry from 1875 to 1926. It was warming up so the nearby beaches were very crowded with people taking advantage during the long weekend. Afterwards, we drove out to the Cape Liptrap Lighthouse.
On Monday, Australia Day, we packed up and drove into Wilsons Promontory National Park to stay at Tidal River (with 480 campsites!). It was very crowded, but we had booked ahead and
a lot of the campsites were being vacated as the long weekend and holiday campers headed back to Melbourne in readiness for recommencement of school. This would make camping much easier for us from now on.
After setting up camp, we walked out to Pillar Point and then came back via the Tidal Overlook circuit track, which gave us nice views of the nearby bays and beaches (eg. Norman Beach, Squeaky Beach, and Tidal River) as well as Mt Oberon and Skull Rock. Australia Day was still relatively cool (at least for us), so we didn't swim, but on Tuesday a hot northerly began to blow, so we walked up to Mt Oberon in the morning and then had a great swim and body surf at Norman Beach in the afternoon. Annelies and Thomas also had great fun with their boogie boards. It was even hotter on Wednesday, so we went for another swim and surf at Squeaky Beach in the morning and then at Norman Beach in the afternoon. The temperature reached around 40C when we were at Tidal River.
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