Day 10 Peterborough to Henty Bay via Geography and Cheese

'There are clifftop walks all around Portland.'
'Goody. Why are you telling me this?'
'Because yesterday you said you loved clifftop walks. Or was that just to LURE ME TO MY DEATH?!?'

I had become more diligent in my role as photographer, mostly by taking a photo whenever Caroline pointed out anything of interest to her. That is why I have two photos, taken from the Twelve Apostles Carpark, of a cow. They are such awesome shots that they are dangerous to put on teh interweb for fear that your eyeballs will explode instantly.



We took a leisurely drive back to the Twelve Apostles Part 2 and (executing a planned u-turn) then headed west again to Loch Ard Gorge (named after the ship that wrecked here), the Arch, London Bridge and the Bay of Islands just past Peterborough.

Loch Ard Gorge

Loch Ard Gorge

The Arch

The Arch

Xanthorrhoea flower spike.

The cheese place was so disappointing that I can't write about it.

A little known gem is the Tower Hill Game Reserve. Not herds of wilderbeast and one-legged warriors silhouetted by the setting sun, but a large volcanic crater that was cleared and then regenerated. Serendipitously I took the wrong turn-off and we ended up on the outer rim looking south into the crater. The structure was perfectly apparent - the sea had eroded the southern third of the rim but not quite reached the central mound. The c-shaped crater is a seasonal swamp; at times almost completely submerged by rainwater.


Entering the reserve proper I almost ran over a koala. A hundred metres on, five emus were foraging in the rushes. Walking tracks cover the slopes of the central mound, and raised boardwalks allow the snake infested swamp to be traversed. On the drive out we saw black swans resting and then a marsh harrier flew overhead. I stopped the car just before the exit to get more shots down into the crater when the marsh harrier flew past below me and called. I looked for the harrier's mate and saw her and, presumably, their adolescent offspring. We were treated to ten minutes of graceful soaring.
If you are in the area you must go there.

The Codrington wind farm wasn't giving tours that day so we observed from the distant carpark. We met an expat English duo and had a chat. Caroline started singing my praises.
'You're not actually allowed to sell me to these people, you know!'

Day 9 Torquay to Peterborough

The night before, my aunt had chortled that I was to sleep with my feet in the ashes of the kitchen fire. I replied that it was appropriately Dickensian and I was thus living literature.
The best part of sleeping on the kitchen floor is that you never miss someone else making tea. It also means that she can instantly harangue you with her Litany of Complaints about the cabin.
How soon we grow accoustomed to comfort.
Comfort in this case includes a bathmat, a bathroom door that shuts, and a stove and shower that work properly.
Caroline was looking forward to a relaxing soak after beating the bathroom door into submission but had a horrible experience instead: hot then cold then hot then cold.
My shower was fine.
'How can that be!?' she raved.
'You have obviously never made love to a French woman.'
I explained that it sounded like the Slobro's shower in Canadia.
'I just learned from your experience so that when I went in I'd be fine - like Iraq. We learned all the lessons from Vietnam. The most important being "Don't fight the Vietnamese". And we didn't, and we're winning!'

I went for a walk along the beach and over the heath. It was sunny again and the rich honey orange headland glowed in a very pleasing manner. 'Well done', I said and took photos.


The evening before, Caroline had pointed out that this was the type of cove in which the Famous Five discover smugglers.


On my return I found that she'd had rudely burnt my cheese on toast. It's so hard to find good aunt these days.
She explained that the stove knob that read 'both elements' only turns on one element. I make an inspection and agree that there is a setting for one element, for the second element and, if she wanted the life-force to burst out of the stove, one for the fifth element.
My reward for lifting the morale of the unit is an inner glow.

Caroline has given me another chore. Not only am I driver, packer and unpacker, photographer, roadwork finder, entertainment officer, and (after last night's giggling episode) navigator, I am now to keep a journal so that she can remember what her trip has been about. As you can see, I have abused this power to the full. But it serves her right.
H: Do we turn here?
C: giggle giggle
H: Is it down there?
C: I don't know. giggle giggle
H: You're the one with the map.
C: giggle giggle. Where are we? giggle.
H: Oh for f....

The Festival of Victorian Roadworks has surely reached it's zenith. They are scraping up the tarmac directly in front of the driveway INSIDE the caravan park! Caroline is so overjoyed she nearly gets run over by the slow-moving machine that looks like a brontosaurus.

We bought supplies in town and were away.
This was the start of the Great Ocean Road which was the second focus of the trip.


We stop at several pretty places including Anglesea and Defiance Point. There is an info board here about William Buckley, of "You've got Buckley's" fame.

Some rich person's house near a lighthouse.

Defiance Point. See how defiant I am?


We visited mussel encrusted rocks and then went inland to a forest walk at Maits Rest. It is temperate rainforest of nothaphagus (southern beech) and tree ferns. I explain that it is remnant Gondwana flora and make my 'Viva Nothaphagus' Elvis joke. It was a hit back in second year biology, and it's still gold. It is very similar to the rainforest near Cairns where we went within two months of each other - the discussion of which lead directly to this trip.
Like a cathedral the trees command reverence. We point out epiphytes as we would stained glass, spandrels of fern fronds, and cloisters made by straddling roots.
At the rainforest margin stand the enormous mountain ash that herald the eucalpyt forest beyond. These are the biggest trees I have ever seen with girths like the fish that got away. Several are the broken columns of a Greek temple, their snapped trunks sun bleached grey.




The southern tip of this part of Victoria is Cape Otway on which there is a lighthouse. It is here that Caroline visits her first ever portaloo.
We wander around until Caroline gets "querelous". She is fading fast and needs lunch. I grab the esky and stride past a snake warning sign and up a track at random.

The following dialogue is provided by Caroline, in conversation with a friend.

CF: What did you do for lunch?
C: Sat on a four wheel drive track, surrounded by snakes, and covered in flies!
CF: How did you get there?
C (querelously): I can't remember!

We were rallied magnificently by lunch. We were full of vim, vigour, shucked oysters and gorr-may sourdough sandwiches.

C: I've got the bread. Let's go!
H: The bread must get through. For god's sake, don't let Jerry get his hands on it! He can have the entire nutritious contents of the esky, but not the bread. If I fall, try and take shelter behind the avocados.

Prattling away and giggling like mad things we drove off to the Twelve Apostles Part 1.





The late afternoon sun, the gentle sea breeze and the majesty of the Apostles are instantly relaxing and humbling. The walkways and platforms are quite crowded but everybody speaks softly and politely gets out of each other's view. It is overawing geography.
Caroline smiles warmly.
'This is beautiful! If I die tonight, call the girls and tell them I was happy.'
I share the moment with her.
'What's on the beach? It's Aunt Caroline. She's blue because she's wearing trakkie daks...'



'Ooh, look, quick! How pretty. The sun's doing stuff!'
Peterborough: God's country.

One of the info boards at the Apostles said the ocean reserve was home to giant cuttlefish...


Evening adventurerering along the beaches and dunes around Peterborough. My powers of nerdness overcame me and I pretended I was a 45ton battlemech, complete with sound effects.

Day 8: Echuca to Torquay via Pride and Prejudice

'My dear, dear aunt,' I rapturously cried, 'what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen*. What are women to rocks and mountains? oh! What hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We will know where we have gone - we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers, shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations**; nor, when we attempt to describe any particular scene, we will begin quarrelling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers.'
'How so? What will facilitate such recollections?' queried my aunt, yet not wishing to quash my enthusiasm.
'My blog.'
'But that is where you muse upon unsavoury topics for base and common effect? I shall not be be in close association with any of that!'
'It is true. I am a bad person. ...But, how good do I look in this dress and bonnet?'
'Most of the hair is hidden. This I find pleasing.'
'You are too kind.'
'It is not my kindness that is in over-abundance, monkey boy!'
And from then on we sat in silence; myself driving, and my aunt content to haughtily let the scenery wash past her.


* My latest song "I left my spleen in Echuca" is out now.
** not true, four days later, for the location of Narooma.


bendigo

How did that happen?

We stopped in Bendigo for coffee, a walk in the park, and the Chinese museum and garden. The centre of Bendigo looks like an inner suburb of Melbourne. All it's main buildings must be of the same age - I really liked it.
The Chinese Museum was spectacular. It is jam packed with excellent artifacts and exhibits. It's only 120k or so to Melbourne, so even if you only go to the museum it would be well worth the drive.





Lunch was in a quite pretty town called Daylesford which holds a similar place as Berry does to Sydney. Both it and Berry pale in comparison to Beechworth and, particularly, Bright. There was a black swan, and this makes Caroline happy. And as I have always said "A happy aunt, is a good aunt" which is not pithy in any way, but they can't all be gems.
The rural countryside gets very pretty, with Caroline comparing it to New Zealand and me with Devon.
She wasn't comparing me with Devon. I was comparing the red earth and greenery to Devon. And even if she was comparing me with devon to tease me for being the towering pillar of hetero man meat that I am, I wouldn't have listened to her insane ravings either.




Planet Blundstone (soggy)

Torquay. The Night-time Rhino restuarant (i think).
No, it was Midnight Rhino.

Appropriately for the namesake of an English sea-side town it was raining when we arrived.


Caroline says that terns wear bicycle racing helmets.

Day 7: Echuca

I poked around in the fridge for breakfast.
"Ooh, blue cheese!" I cried.
"Yes, I told you that I'd bought it yesterday and you stared at me in incomprehension. 'Who are you? And what is blue cheese?' Clearly nobody was home."

By any calculations I was now in my thirties, so to celebrate we took an hour cruise on the Murray on a paddlesteamer called the PS Pevensy. It is a good pace to travel. 'Languid' springs to mind, but I can't be bothered looking it up; we'll just go with that vibe. I like the sensation of going somewhere - I took the bus to and from Melbourne for that reason, and was why I volunteered to be the chauffeur on this trip.
I was half expecting to be assailed by a commentary the whole trip, but it was only where we turned around that the speaker came to life with pretty much 'Look up there. It's a nest. If you wanna know anything else: come and ask.'



The port is a very impressive construction of river gum pillars, trusses and a couple of narrow rat-runs. The whole thing has to deal with floods of up to thirteen metres. The river is standing at six feet at the moment. In '81 it reached 32feet and in '93 it was 33 anda half. The 38feet was in 1870.


Afterwards we admired the pair of Clydesdales at a horse-flu friendly distance.
Lunch was at Victoria's number one fish'n'chippery. It was good, sure, but I don't see the fuss.

I love my aunt's smart arsery that allows me to reply in kind.
In response to some snideness on her part:'Hate' is a strong word, but I hate you.
Explosion of laughter.

"Dear Caroline, I am going to stab you with this fork.
Would you like to be stabbed (a) in the leg, (b) in the arm, (c) in the privacy of your own home?"

We drove towards our caravan park, six kilometres out of town, wondering what to do for the afternoon when I saw a winery sign. Serendipity was fast becoming the guiding principle of the trip.
They have a brindle great-dane/mastiff cross who silently greeted us. He's a dopey and well-intentioned dog who dutifully ate the dead flies at the base of the window and flopped down behind the tasting bar.
We stayed an hour and chatted about water usage, infrastructure, the Gippsland drought of the sixties etc etc. They had a nice light dry riesling, a soft French-style shiraz, and a good durif.

In town I saw a shop called 'Complete Garden.'

A: You, sir, are a complete garden!
B: How dare you? I demand satisfaction: pistols at dawn.
A: Very well, you filthy gazebo.
B: Impudence!!

No, it's not the heat getting to me, but raw unblinkered genius let slip for the betterment of all.


In the afternoon I went for a walk along the river and saw a sacred blue kingfisher or, as the French say, Le Roi de Angleur Sacre Bleu.


The much anticipated cool front was coming through.
Caroline walked back inside.
'The wind's getting up. There'll be smugglers in the cove,' she told me.
How would I know? I'm not a sailor.
But I do kiss like one.

Day 6. Rutherglen to Echuca

Hung over.
Worked out the $10 cleanskin pinot noir was aged in a port barrel hence its brown red colour and sweet fruitiness. And indeed port flavour.
We drove through three transitions of flora marking the graduations of dessication. Surprisingly a lot of dairy cattle and orchards. The water and feed for all this was coming from somewhere, but certainly somewhere else.
Apparently the farmers are suffering out here, and so am I.
It gets drier and flatter, and then becomes perfectly flat. In my unhealthy state I was exhausted by the two hour drive. The scorching temperature ably assisted a three hour afternoon nap.

Caroline's version of the day runs thusly:
"In an alcoholic haze he drove to Echuca. Basically the only thing in his mind was to get to Echuca and die."

Lake Mulwala. They dammed the Murray to make a recreactional reserve. Hence the dead trees.

I unpacked the car and Caroline offered me the big room because she is very kind.

The vinyl-covered single mattresses are in a triple bunk in the hallway. Caroline is making much of how I peeling myself off similar ones in Moruya Heads. I insist she takes the proper room.

How do you say "The room of my aunt is bigger than my uncle's pen"?

More importantly, how do you say "The bed of your nephew is on the kitchen floor"?

Caroline is complaining of the heat: a good call to not go to the desert after all. We'll save that for winter.

It'll be 34 tomorrow and I'll be 31.

Day 5 Bright to Rutherglen

The evening found me cooking a thick cut rump steak on an electric bbq fueled by twenty-cent pieces surrounded by ducks.
But then again I saw a one armed man play a guitar in Santiago, and an Irish girl tried to sell me her car instantly in Cairns, and I will be photographed by the gay press in two weeks time when I go back to the kitchen to retreive the bit of paper on which I'd written "There's a difference between bravery and stupidy. Luckily I was stupid the whole time - Marcello [with regard to travelling around the world, and being knifed and bombed]."
The point is, paradox aside, we should be prepared for the unexpected.
And, in my more positive moments, I would suggest the whole point of life is to face them with a grin and wholeheartedly embrace such moments.
And if not moments, then certainly the gorgeous twenty-one and twenty-two year olds who pull you up short. And much as I would like to be destined for 'the special hell', there is...

Ducks.
There were ducks, ok. And they have a... oh, who cares.
There were two white muskovies who were disliked intensely by a third white muskovy; a pied muskovie who was chill; a pair of french white beauties with elegant tail curls; a pacific black duck and her part grown duckling. And even though I was quite drunk at the time, I don't think there is any Great Truth hidden in this.

We'd gone through a number of towns with field pieces standing in memorium to those thousands of country boys from these parts who went off and never came back. The butcher in Rutherglen (25year old or so) was that same salt-of-the-earth genuine country stock that blew the hell out whomever they were ordered against and had the hell blown out of them in turn.
It had been an afternoon of wine tasting. It was very succesful - I was happily pickled and they'd got a few hundred dollars out of me. Needless to say I was hilarious.

Bright caravan park

Outside Bright

The transition from alpine hills to flat drier Riverina is impressive.

In daylight we see just what a beautiful part of the world Bright and its surrounds represent. It's movie set perfection. All the farms are small holdings of berries, orchards, timber and pasture. You wouldn't think the area was subject to water restrictions - everything is so green and every second tree is an ornamental exotic. The bare granite Mt Buffalo stands in dramatic backdrop. It's just ripe for developers to absolutely tear the heart out of.

Myrtleford and Beechworth are pretty and unspoilt.

Mt Buffalo

We continued north and the land flattened and dried. The exotics gave way to eucalypts.

After yesterday's herculean efforts I gladly handed over the wheel once we got set up in Rutherglen. I was here for durif, and I found a very good example at the first place we went.

All Saints Estate is a castle hidden from the sunstruck fields by lush avenues of maple. The first hint that you are close is a hedge beside the road standing out like square-cut green dogs balls. The hedge is an overture to a brick gateway and ostentatious avenue. On emerging one beholds an edifice that politely informs that the staff are about to charge your credit card as they would French skirmishers. After the fountain, yellow roses brocade the double doors and one realises one has been referring to yourself as 'one'.

It's that sort of place.

But they did have some interesting wines.

The Rutherglen Estate woman was a very informative ex-bottlo owner from Gladesville who'd moved out because she got sick of the shop being broken into and held up.

Rose from Pfieffer was cute and enthusiastic. She didn't respond at all to my flirtatious overtures. Evidently she'd never seen a real man before and was confused by the thrumming inevitably stirred up deep within her taut, lithe body.

Bullens was lolly water masquerading as wine. A trap for ignorant young players with no idea, who are very obviously their target market.

Rutherglen

We stayed in a cabin in the caravan park, not this pub.

Day 4: Eden to Bright

We bought some large leather jacket for $2.50 each and continued down the coast.
The first stop was the nearby lighthouse at Green cape. Impressively windy. I could have sat there watching gannets all day until my lips were blasted off bit by chapped bit.
On the dirt road to the light house Caroline, with reference to my driving, said "I just close my eyes and think of what colour my new car will be."


Please don't run aground here. Thank you.

Disaster bay.
So called after a jamless picnic in 1866. Also a ship floundered there and most of the people drowned - and that put a real dampener on an already disappointing picnic. The waves were trailing chaos patterns, but I couldn't really capture it on film. A very nice lookout.


We drove into Victoria and had a petrol stop and lunch at Cann River. About ten k out of town we were flagged down by a group of concerned and confused backpackers. There were five of mixed nationality in a fully laden falcon that had boiled over.
'This is where you pour the water in, right?' asked their Irish ringleader.
A good learning experience for them. I'm sure they're fine.

Turning inland we came to a gorgeous little town called Bruthen. Omeo was also attractive. Both were compared with a travesty of a town called Tilba Tilba just south of Narooma back in NSW. Tilba Tilba is a crappy tourist trap with no saving graces at all yet was described in glowing terms by a delighted travel writer from the SMH. Caroline made heated comments about the mental agility of the writer and angrily tore up the review.
Bruthen would quite possibly made that writer's brain explode.


I had chosen a scenic route through the alpine region on the Great Alpine road via Mt Hotham and four hundred roadwork sites. Standing snow still around.
Caroline asked aloud in wonder "What the hell are we doing?" and laughed.
Uncontrolable bush fires from last summer had killed large swathes of snow gums such that the country looked uncannily like Nova Scotia with it's greys and faded greens.



A short while later she thought I was going to drive over the edge when I was making an unscheduelled photo stop.
"I thought you'd gone blind!" after she'd finished reaching for the handbrake.
Drove right over the mountains hindered by 30km/h bends and 40km/h roadworks to finally trundle into Bright at 6:30pm. Our chosen park was closed for the day. Caroline gave me a very unimpressed look, so I called the next place and got a woman called Dawn on the phone. She happily agreed to meet us at reception.
So in the gloom of dusk in a town called Bright we made Dawn come and meet us.

We rejigged the trip due to the very long distance covered today and cut out the Mildura to Menindee and Mungo section. Wise move, so we have more leisurely trip from Echuca to the coast via Bendigo and Ballarat, and also home.

Leather jacket on the bbq with greens and potato. yummo.