Week 2, 3 - 9 January: Bright to Melbourne - Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
Day 8 – Friday, 3 January 2014:
Bright – Mt Beauty – Mt Hotham – Omeo – Bruthen – Lakes Entrance
Before heading over the Great Divide to the coast, we quickly drove back over Tawonga Gap to
Mt Beauty to visit the Sweetwater Brewing Company. All our earlier trips to north east Victoria missed this tiny microbrewery but it was well worth the visit.
After crossing Tawonga Gap, we braved the crazy road climb to Mt Hotham. At this highest point for the car, we found a silent ski village wrapped in rain and mist at 14˚C. The long downhill drive after a hurried lunch in the car took us to Omeo. We found the surprisingly grand Golden Age Hotel there a welcome stop while watching Australian team on its way to whitewashing England in the 5th Ashes Test back in Sydney.
Later, after a slightly carsick Jo asked for a stop in Bruthen, as we drove out of town, Jane yelled
"brewery!" After a highway U-turn, we stopped for another drink, this time at the Bullant Brewery. This is a very pleasant establishment and a huge surprise that my pre-trip research had left undiscovered.
Day 9 – Saturday, 4 January 2014:
Lakes Entrance – Metung – Bruthen – Sale – Port Albert – Port Welshpool – Foster – Walkerville
Even I would have liked to have had a swim at Lakes Entrance but the day started cool and very windy. The sea was rough and the beach more a dune fronted by a cliff… Metung, on the lakes, was a pleasant stop, despite the wind, for meat pies, before Bullant enticed us north briefly – leopards don't change their spots.
As we headed east to Wilson’s Promontory, the wind grew stronger and day colder yet. Diversions from the South Gippsland Highway took us to Port Albert and Port Welshpool. In 1992, I passed through the latter as this was the Victorian port for the short-lived Bass Strait high speed catamaran
service. The Tiger Cat carried cars and passengers across in only 3 hours. The idea was that, including driving to or from Melbourne, you would save hours on a Launceston or Hobart – Melbourne journey. However, free sea sickness pills were handed out when checking in and
Tasmanians called it the Spewcat.
There is only one wind farm visible from the South Gippsland Highway: proof that hysteria can win over common sense. During our five days in Gippsland, the wind never seemed to dip below 15 knots. While many object to wind turbines on aesthetic grounds, Jane and I agree that sustainable energy should win out. No-one objects to grain silos in the wheat belt – why are turbines any different?
Our camp site at Walkerville had a five-day minimum booking and we got the last spot. It was also cheap and on the beach! When the morning mist and afternoon haze cleared, Walkerville also has a great view to the Prom.
Day 10 – Sunday, 5 January 2014:
Walkerville – Wilson’s Promontory National Park (Tidal River) – Foster – Walkerville – Walkerville South – Walkerville
Walkerville to Wilson’s Promontory National Park is “only” about 80km. Based on the crowds as Tidal River, it’s more like 800. We had lunchat Tidal River between short bushwalks.
On the way back to Walkerville, we stopped in at Foster for supplies and a drink at the 100 year old Exchange Hotel. The huge dining room, though empty that night, demonstrates the popularity of the Prom. The menu, though, is the best demonstration of the Victorian mania for the parma – AKA chicken parmigiana. The Exchange lists original, Aussie, Italian (isn’t that original?), Hawaiian, Indonesian and the “Parma of the Week”. The latter was Tahitian, which included flake (i.e. shark) and prawns with the everyday tomato and melted cheese. As yet, I’m undecided on this peculiar Victorian cultural development.
Another seeming Victorian peculiarity is the annual campsite booking. It seems as if fully half of Victorians visit the same campsite every year and simply have an annual booking. We were told of our unbelievable luck that a cancellation allowed us a spot at Walkerville. It seems like we had found the last available campsite within 100km of Wilson’s Promontory. Bright was similar and many of the campsites are strung with Christmas lights. We’ve seen sites with full-sized fridges, couches and flat screen TVs under tarpaulins! Perhaps none of this is peculiarly Victorian – we may just move in the wrong Sydney circles. That said, when relations, friends, acquaintances and workmates speak of going up or down the coast every summer, it is always to a holiday house, often owned by a family. If they camp, they never mention an annual booking. Yet when departing camp grounds in Victoria, we are asked “have you booked for next year?” Our Melbourne friends suggest that Victorians are creatures of habit – it seems they are right.
Day 11 – Monday, 6 January 2014:
Walkerville – Venus Bay – Inverloch – Cape Patterson – Wonthanggi – Phillip Island (Rhyll – Cowes – Summerlands – The Nobbies – Wimbledon Heights – Cowes – Summerlands) – Walkerville
This was our long day’s journey into night. After following the coast roads, we spent the afternoon and evening on Phillip Island. Jane’s workmates gave her tickets to the penguin parade as her farewell gift.
We bought pies in Inverloch, avoiding the huge bakery-café on the main street for a more modest shop. Bakery-cafés are apparently all the range across Victoria. This is unlike NSW where, at most, a Vietnamese hot-bread shop / bakery will have only a handful of seats.
Mid-afternoon we visited the penguins at The Nobbies – you can see nesting penguins there during
daylight. The highlight was seeing a lost fledgling chick find his way back to the burrow; otherwise only nesting adults could be seen within.
Before visiting Cowes for dinner out, we tried the beers at the Rusty Water “Brewery” in Wimbledon
Heights. The staff were unable to say where the beer is actually brewed; “the boss might know, he owns a couple of those places”. While the beer was mediocre, we would still be interested to know…
Cowes for dinner was almost a disaster. We would informed of minimum waits for meals of 60 minutes at the RSL and 45 minutes at a Tex-Mex themed restaurant (any port in a storm). Fortunately, the local pizza joint provided fast service and decent food. Given our by-then-tight timetable, we ate in the car.
Patience is required at the penguin parade, which we had and others didn’t. Fortunately, Jo and Pete were able to move to sand (out of the stands), so they were able to see the parading birds from only centimetres. More enjoyable was watching the birds make their way through the sand dunes behind the stands. Understandably, if regretfully, photography is banned.
Day 12 – Tuesday, 7 January 2014:
Walkerville – Foster – Mirboo North – Morwell – Traralgon – Meeniyan – Walkerville
We planned a lazy day and it was, if you except Dad taking a 1 hour detour to show the kids the horrors of brown coal mining in the Latrobe valley…
We drove over to Mirboo North over dirt roads through the beautiful Strzelecki Ranges. There’s mix of dairy farming, tall forests and pockets of rainforest along the way. The kids reward was nachos and hot chips for lunch. Mum and Dad’s reward was a visit to the Grand Ridge Brewery in Mirboo North…
Day 13 – Wednesday, 8 January 2014:
Walkerville – Wilson’s Promontory National Park (Tidal River – Mt Oberon – Tidal Creek) – Foster – Fish Creek – Walkerville
After our lazy day, we decided to be energetic and climb Mount Oberon. In the end, it wasn’t that difficult a walk, particularly as Parks Victoria insists on bussing walkers to car park more than half way up. Regardless, we managed the return walk in about 70% of the recommended time. From
the summit you can see the islands south of the Prom. I’d previously seen these from sea level in
1992 while aboard the Spewcat.
After the climb, the kids and Jane had a swim at Norman Beach, behind the camp grounds at Tidal River. I read the newspaper on-line in the car, on the basis that there was no surf and Bass Strait looks like a good place for a thermal vasectomy. Later, we stopped at Squeaky Beach and Jane’s assertion was proven to me – the water there was warmer than at Merimbula…
After stopping for supplies at Foster, I insisted on visiting the Fish Creek Hotel. This is a surprisingly large art-deco pub with, incongruously, a giant fibreglass fish erected on its roof. The owners appear to be mid-restoration. As kids are generally unwelcome in the public bar and it was too hot in the beergarden, we sat at the only available table in the bistro. Every table was reserved for dinner, generally at 6.00pm.
Dining in country Victoria in summer is an odd experience. Of course you expect early closing times. However, in Victoria, or at least anywhere where people holiday, and that seems to be anywhere near the coast or a river, and that’s just about everywhere, isn’t it, people reserve a table. And they want to eat early. And all at once. And they tolerate huge waits. It doesn’t matter how humble the dining room – takeaways are obviously excluded from this – there are always
huge crowds all wanting to eat at 6.00pm and not getting their food until 7.00. Even on a Monday night… No-one complains, except stupid New South Welshmen, so I doubt it will ever change…
Day 14 – Thursday, 9 January 2014:
Walkerville – Meeniyan – Koo-wee-rup – Pakenham – Gembrook – Emerald –
Belgrave – Mt Dandenong – Healesville – Yarra Glen – Coldstream – Lilydale – Melbourne (Coburg North)
After a physical day, more driving, with a night in a real bed as our reward. We skirted Melbourne’s sprawl to head up into the Dandenong Ranges. As the wind had finally abated and temperatures were rising, any altitude was worth the drive. We had lunch in Belgrave in time for Pete to run down to the station and see a train pass through on the Puffing Billy heritage steam line. He insisted on staying for the return service and begged for a ride. Nasty Mum and Dad said no, as he has ridden
it before. Partly to mollify him but mainly because it’s a pleasant drive, we drove along the line to Belgrave.
The drive up from Belgrave to Mount Dandenong is better though. While the national park is tiny, there are huge mountain ash along the way, some virtually in the road. The view over Melbourne from the mountain is good, though the $5 parking fee is ridiculous.
From Mount Dandenong, we wound our way over to Healesville for a beer at the White Rabbit Brewery. This is far from a microbrewery and now owned by Japanese giant Kirin. But the beers are good. After that, we headed over to Yarra Glen for a tasting paddle (thimble glasses on a board) at the bar of Hargreaves Hill Brewing. Finally, we stopped at Coldstream Brewery for a couple of pots.
A long drive through outer Melbourne sprawl to us to the freeway and another took us across middle Melbourne to a two-bedroom campground cabin in Coburg. Like in the motel in Lakes Entrance, I found it difficult to sleep: an airbed seems normal now…