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Published: March 14th 2013
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Wed 13-3-13.
Todat we farewell NSW and head into Victoria on our journey.
In yesterdays blog I included a portrait of Boyd, and today we went the extra mile to check out his folly here on the coast. 99% of tourists rush past this piece of history that stands tall and can be seen from Eden accross the harbour from Boyds Tower. Boyd had business interests in Sheep (marino wool and meat trade) as well as whaling. He wanted to build here his own town, wharf etc to send produce back to Scotland. The tower was built and he wanted a lighthouse mounted on the top, but the Government of the day said no! So the tower was only used to spot whales. It proudly bares his name on the top of the structure. (Stone was imported from Sydney, so this was an extravagent folly!)
Some time later he got peeved off, sold up, headed to California and seems to have disappeared into no where.
Access to the tower is initially on a quality sealed road, and the last 1.2ks over a rutted gravel road, and then a 300 meter walk. Initially Marg was not to sure
about driving in as she thought the sign said 12ks of rutted road. Anyway, we got there OK in our faithful Merc (towing the trailer) and were very impressed with the location. The area is often known as red rocks or Folded Rocks, and you will see why from the photos. The sea was a magical colour, but really churning. This would be spectacular if heavy seas were running.
The temperatures today were in the mid 30's, but a southerly wind has dropped the temps for the night. The winds were gusting stronly at Buchan when we arrived, but now calm.
From there we returned to the Princes Highway, turned left and headed for Victoria. The country side was heavily undulating crossing various rivers including The Snowey River until we got to Nowa Nowa and headed inland to the little town of Buchan which has beautiful lime stone caves to explore. We set up camp, visited Royal Cave and will explore Fairy Cave tomorrow morning before returning to the coast at Lakes Entrance.
Royal Cave
Our guide, Ian (A kiwi that went to the same high school as myself) took us through the caves and gave
a very informative talk about the different rock structures, types of crystals that have grown, and also sedement layers with shells embeded. This area had been below seal level at some time and pusted upwards with the realignment of continental plates.
I am not going to describe the technicals of the different structures, but hope you enjoy the pics.
Thursday 14th
We woke cool, had a cloudy morning, but that did not prevent a great day.
Fairy Cave was the first cave in the area open to the public for close to 100 years now. Improvements have been made by way of concrete paths and lighting. We have visited other limestone caves, and each is unique. This cave is narrow winding down a fault, so there is quite a bit of ducking and weaving. But the effort was rewarding, loaded with lots of interesting photos.
After our tour and a quick lunch brake, we drove out to the coast, past Lakes Entrance and met up with David and Mary a little west of Bairnsdale at our free camp for the night. The cloud was heavy over Lakes Entrance, so we took a couple of shots
and decided that maybe next time! There are cruises, very fresh off the boat sea food etc in this popular destination.
About an hour after settling into our camp the sun came out and this bodes well for tomorrow.
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Mum & Dad
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Great photos
We enjoyed your photos and the shots of the caves. Very interesting formations and worth you stopping to view. Glad weather being kind to you. Found you on the map you are moving along well. Love US2@136