PURPOSEFUL PORTLAND

Early Morning at Henty Bay Beach

Well here we are in Victoria! Before I tell you about Portland tho’ let me just touch briefly on our boat trip. On our last Saturday in Mt Gambier we took a drive down to Nelson and jumped on a boat to take a cruise up the Glenelg River. The river meanders in and out of both SA and Victoria and takes in quite a pretty scenic run. The cruise takes you to the Princess Rose Margaret Caves and then returns to Nelson. As far as cruises go it was OK. The cost was app $30 per head with a small seniors discount of a couple of dollars. The couple who ran the tour were a little pedantic; stressing the discount could only be obtained with a Seniors Card and not a Pension Card???!!! Oh well – they had been running the cruise for some 15 years and I think they were ‘over it’.

A Little on the Tired Side!

The boat was OK, I think it was called the Glenelg Endeavour or some such and like the owners had seen better days. The river was quite pretty however and the limestone walls along the way were spectacular in parts. The owners fed the ducks and swans along the way with slices of bread, much to our amazement – they would not be able to do that at home! Needless to say, the process was quite successful as we were eagerly followed along the way by a plethora of water birds. We didn’t go on the cave tour at the end as neither of us are cave enthusiasts and the thought of delving deep into the bowels of Mother Earth doesn’t thrill us. We enjoyed instead an ice-cream at the pretty park alongside the caves, and the antics of the variegated Fairy Wrens which live there. We are rather fond of these sorts of cruises and so weren’t disappointed but I would hesitate to recommend the trip to others.

Limestone Rock Face Along the Glenelg

So, Portland, well...........this is not what we would call a pretty place, although it does have its beauty spots. The town is purported to be “Victoria’s birthplace by the sea” as it saw the first established European settlement in 1834. Not an awful lot of that first settlement is left to see but a few notable remnants do survive today. Essentially however, Portland is a working port and fairly heavily industrialised; Portland Aluminium is a big part of that industrialisation, occupying 500 odd hectares of land with a further 100 hectares occupied by associated buildings and roads. The plant employs over 600 souls and is ostensibly one of Australia’s largest export earners.

Some Vestige of The Past Remain

We were interested also to see enormous piles of woodchips waiting at the port – the logs are trucked in here and chipped up before being shipped out.

I must say in support of the town and the powers that be here, they have done the whole thing quite well and the place abounds with parks and open spaces capitalising on the scenery of the bay and surrounds.

Accross the Bay to The Industrialised Port Area

Fishing is also huge here, and it includes trawling, abalone, crayfish and squid sectors. They say that Portland supplies up to 40% of Victoria’s fishing haul.

Portland also ‘boasts’ a large wind-farm which they say, when completed, will be the largest in the Southern hemisphere. I must say winds-farming appears to be eminently suited to this rather windy area.

We are staying (for 1 week) at the Family Park out at Henty Bay, some 6 ks North East of the town of Portland. There is a story attached to the park which is very run down. It seems it was owned and run by a couple and the gentleman passed away some 3 years ago. The woman, poor soul was compelled to keep running the park pending the sale. It took her 3 years to get her price and the sale has just taken place. Of course all of this is hearsay! Anyway, Family Parks has just taken over, only days before we arrived. As a result of this the park is a little topsy-turvy at the moment, but, we have absolute beach-front and now that the crowds have abated somewhat, we have a very private little piece of paradise. When we arrived the park was awash with loudly active family groups, all of whom had descended on the place for a fishing comp held last week-end. I must say watching their antics did make me miss our own mob, who I’m sure would have given this lot a run for their money in noisy antics. Most of the families were from the country and the kids were wholesomely ‘normal’ – skidding around the park on their bikes and driving most of us nuts with their screaming and carrying on. I must confess to being a crabby old woman just once and directing a loud “Oy” at one young miscreant who was intent on breaking down most of the lovely windbreak protecting us from the worst of the ocean ‘breeze’ that gusts in here most afternoons. The young man in question gave me such a poisonous and resentful glare when he next rode his bike past the van we were nervously expecting to find a rotten fish or something similar secreted in the exhaust pipe or some such.

The beach here provides a lovely little walk if you are prepared to dodge the tides that block the sand in places. All the beachfront here has been reinforced with large rocks, evidencing we assume, some serious erosion of the sand banks in times past. Early morning walks provided us with a couple of sensational shots – the morning light being exceptional here.

The town boasts an historic Cable Tram – founded in 1996 the restored and modified 1885-1940 tram, now operating on diesel runs a short but scenic tour of the bay, foreshore and historic sites. The whole thing is operated and run by elderly volunteers. The trip we took had a venerable lady doing the ‘talk-over’ and we were amazed to see her (not quite nimbly) jump out of the tram to ‘trot’ into the middle of a fairly busy road to flash her red flag at oncoming traffic.

Refurbished Cable Tram

Our Venerable Tram Girl

We visited the Railway museum/ come tram depot during our tram trip and once again I was sorry we didn’t have our grandsons with us, as the working model trains included a very busy Thomas bustling along the tracks.

Thomas and Friends Model Railway

One of the recommended day trips from Portland took us out to Cape Bridgewater, a pretty little seaside village some 20 odd ks west of Portland. We enjoyed the drive and the oceanic views along the way. I think tho’ that after the beauty of Port MacDonnell this paled a little in comparison.

Tiny Beachside hamlet of Cape Bridgewater

All in all we have enjoyed our stay here. One week was an overkill, but we booked longer than necessary simply to ensure a bay somewhere over the Australia Day long weekend. As the kids go back to school here next Tuesday, we should now have an easier time finding ourselves good spots to stay.

We leave here on Sunday and head to Warrnambool where we will start our exploration of the Great Ocean Road and surrounds. I am really looking forward to The Great Ocean Road.

DD has booked our passage on the Spirit of Tasmania for a day trip on the 17th Feb. I have to admit to really wanting a night voyage, however, due to the size of our combined van and vehicle they had a little trouble finding room for us, so we had to take what was on offer. We have only booked one way at this stage and are very pleased with the price of $810 for ourselves and our rig.

Now we have a date for our departure, we will have to be a little more structured with our times. I was a little worried we had not left ourselves sufficient time to really see the Great Ocean Road until DD pointed out we have 3 weeks to cover only 300 odd ks and it has taken us only 4 weeks to get here! I guess we will cope.

Fresh & Blustery Morning Henty Bay

All in all, everything is going fine and pretty much to plan. We are finding now that we have the odd day in which to do very little at all, and I think that is essential to our continuing enjoyment of our sightseeing. If you are seeing outstanding sights every single day I think your enjoyment palls somewhat after a while. Every so often we need to stop and have a day just for correspondence, maintenance, reading, sleeping, chatting, sleeping, ..........................what, oh sorry – yes I was being a pratt, but you know someone has to do this stuff just to give the younger ones something to look forward to.

Don’t forget to surprise each other from time to time and until we talk again, look after yourselves. Steph

Stunning Roses at The Portland Botanical Gardens

Sorry about the layout above - the draft shows it completely differently and I have no idea how to fix.