Day 5 – Warrnambool to Cape Bridgewater via Portland
Seeing as we were yet again without showers but parked right by the beach, we started the day with a dip in the Tasman Sea. A little bracing by anyone’s standards, but I suppose it got the circulation going and we were still going to be clean.
Today we ventured forth further along the south coast towards Portland via Port Fairy, eventually ending up in Bridgewater – where our evening was one of those that you started traveling for in the first place.
Port Fairy, just up the road from Warrnambool is a cute small town, but this time it actually had something that many of the others didn’t – charm. Cute, attractive and it also had an amazing sweet shop – always a hit with yours truly!
On towards Portland and the weather began to take a turn for the worse. The dream of having barbecues most days in the glorious sunshine suddenly went a bit Pete Tong and the sun ran away and the gale force wind threatened to take our ‘kanga sangers’ off for an early rapture. And I nearly froze my tits off.
Pressing on to Cape Bridgewater proved more rewarding. We got the opportunity to walk part of the ‘Great South West Walk’ for about 1.2 km in some beautiful (but at points quite steep) hills along the coast to see a large non-breeding colony of Australia Fur Seals – a comical bunch who were well worth the trek. One feels quite jealous of seals at times – theirs is a life of spending most of the day sleeping a rock and occasionally wiggling around like a fat, wibbly sausage.
We managed to find another free spot to park up and sleep in – this time by some magnificent, picturesque lakes near Cape Bridgewater called Discovery Lakes. We were more or less the only ones there for the whole night (a battered van made an appearance for 5 minutes at about 11:30pm, but then went away. We never did work out what they would have been doing!) and we sat and had a picnic on a small boat jetty as we watched the sun set.
This was, naturally, the perfect time for a pipe as well! I believe the photos will tell it best.
What a wonderful way to spend a busy day. Ah, it’s a hard life!
A couple of shots from the walk to the Seal Colony – both of them overlooking Cape Bridgewater – nice eh?
Some Australian Fur Seals chillin’ at the colony.
Now THAT is what I call a sunset (this is raw from the camara, no alterations, no photoshopping!)!
Ah, now I could get used to this….
I loved the photos- so beautiful!! Very very jealous!
But I have to say, your description of the seals as “fat, wibbly sausages” had me giggling for about five minutes!
Good to hear you guys are alright amidst the fires. x
Cheers, we left the week before the fires actually, but they were quite far from Melbourne so wouldn’t have affected us. See you in June!