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Published: March 16th 2018
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Well, in the planning phase for this trip we decided to stay in Port MacDonnell because we’ve been through Mt Gambier a few times on the way to South Australia, but we’ve never ventured down into that funny little south-eastern corner of SA. Now that we have visited, if anyone asked, I think I would suggest staying in Mount Gambier and just driving out to Port MacDonnell for a quick look because the accommodation and dining options are very limited. The beach house with studio that we booked sounded quaint, but in reality was a bit rustic!! The house was very old and, to be honest, a bit musty. The studio was nicer, but the bathroom facilities for it were across a breezeway that featured an outdoor sink for gutting fish!! Probably a great destination for keen fishers?
We departed Port MacDonnell and pointed the car for Victoria. The first town over the border is Nelson which is situated at the mouth of the Glenelg River. We drove down to the mouth of the river to see the birds - more black swans and pelicans. Both species appear to really favour these estuarine areas.
From Nelson we continued towards
Portland but, rather than drive straight there, we headed south to explore the Two Capes. First was Cape Bridgewater known for its blowholes and petrified forest. Although the surf was pounding the coast the sea wasn’t high enough to create the spectacular spouts of sea spray that can sometimes be seen from the viewpoints.
The Petrified Forest is actually a bit of a misnomer because the columns are not the petrified trunks of trees, but karst solution pipes which just means hollow tubes of limestone that have eroded as a result of millions of years of rainfall.
The cape also features a wind farm which many would feel spoils the natural beauty of the area, but I actually don’t find the windmills offensive. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that I find them rather majestic.
From Cape Bridgewater we drove across to Cape Nelson which features ... yet another lighthouse and march flies in plague proportions! For some reason the march flies seem to prefer legs to arms so I was OK because I was wearing long pants and shoes and socks. The others were hopping about slapping at flies though and
rather keen to be on our way.
As we started driving towards Portland we saw an echidna by the side of the road so braked and executed a U-turn to try for a better look. Of course when we pulled up the echidna got all shy and headed into the brush rather than posing for photos! We did read later in one of the brochures that we had that echidnas are plentiful in the Cape Nelson State Park. One final stop at Yellow Rock and we were on our way to Portland.
Fortunately by the time we arrived in Portland there was no sign of the crash involving a truck and two cars that had resulted in the highway being closed since late yesterday. The lady at the Tourist Information Centre in Nelson had warned us of this and suggested that we take the back roads to the Two Capes rather than drive into Portland and then to the capes from there.
We didn’t stop in Portland, we had our sights set on Port Fairy where we planned to buy ice creams at Poco Artisan Ice Cream, sister shop to Cathy and Steve’s local gelato shop, Miinot
Gelato. Damn, they are only open on weekends! We walked along Port Fairy’s main street and found an alternative ice creamery. We were planning to walk around Port Fairy a bit more, but a shower of rain put a dampener on that.
Our next stop was Warrnambool where we had rooms booked for the night at the Comfort Inn International. The motel has a back gate onto Lava Street which meant that we only had a short walk to go out for hamburgers for dinner at Kermond’s Hamburgers. Kermond’s is a Warrnambool institution serving burgers since 1949. The burgers at Kermond’s were good, but not really any better than our local fish ‘n’ chip ‘n’ burger shop ‘Fish on High’ (Street, Preston).
Steps: 11,262 (8.61kms)
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