Day 11 Henty Bay/Portland

We drove the six kilometres by the quick route this time. Last night's excursion to town had seen us take the long way into town, go shopping, and then hare off on the wrong road out of town.
'This is a long six kilometres' the aunt suggested.
'And we're too high' the nephew replied.
Then we encountered extensive roadworks that we didn't recognise. We had been joking the last few days that the roadworks were being laid on especially for us but there was no way they could have done so much work in so little time.
We did a u-turn immediately afterwards which was the closest conjunction of a u-turn to roadworks that we did on the trip. And a good thing too. The route back to Sydney from the caravan park joined this road AFTER these roadworks and we would have missed them!

We drove to the petrified forest and walked along the seacliffs to find out they are geological formations not preserved treee trunks.
'Damned wind ruined my hairstyle again!' complained the aunt.
The landscape is perfectly alien. I will be shooting scenes of "Return to the Planet of No Return 2" here. Lord MattressHammer has started the script already. Well, he came up with the title. I'm sure it will be fine.



A school house from 1866

Then it was off to the seal colony via a two hour walk up and onto a headland. It's a very interesting walk. The bay slopes very gently so the waters are vividly blue.

Private Cemetery of the Kennedy Family who all died of snake bite walking off the path to see what this gravestone was.



'You're only a third of the way. If you want a seat, you can put it up yourself, slack arse.'

The headland rises from the blue like it's drawing breath. The land is cattle pasture and the owners have built their house out of the wind on the reverse slope. It's a perfect spot for a castle. Martins and swallows are ubiquitous. The martins twitter continuously and frequently alight on the wire fence beside the trail. Skylarks are announcing their territories with sounds of a canary crossed with an Atari.
If you had one super power would it be invisiblity or flight?
No contest.

Eldritch bushes, straight from a Tim Burton set, trail their ghost fingers in the wind.


We reached the viewing platform that stands about eighty(?) metres above the seal colony and saw three seals lolling about. The star of the show was this kestrel whose roost was directly underneath the platform. I've got a whole series of shots as he crossed slightly below us. In two of them he's looking directly at the camera.
At more of a distance a little falcon put on a great display of hovering - hanging crucified against the sky.



Caroline had been to the large seal colony on Montague Island and of this one said "Well, it was called a colony, but it was more of a meet-and-greet."

We drove back to the caravan park via town and the aluminium smelter. A purpose-built port is attached to the smelter that allows them to supply ingots and other raw aluminium products directly to their customers in a business plan known as "He who smelt it, dealt it."

At the caravan park I saw a pair of hooded plovers. These small birds nest just above the hide tide mark. I turned back at this point so as not to disturb them.

I was alone on the beach. The basalt boulder seawall obscured the houses beyond. All I could see was the ribbon of sand between that dark bastion and the incoming tide. The sand glistened like a promise. I tossed my head and raced the waves like a healthy colt. I snickered arrogantly as the wave ran up the beach and consumed my footprints. The young women watching felt their hearts leap within their breasts to see the muscles sprung taut along my flanks.
I was magnificent.
One of the young ladies was taken faint and slipped off the seawall into the crashing waves. I read later that she'd been torn apart by sea creatures and was now on display at the maritime museum.

Caroline's comment: 'Oh, dream on.'