Sarah

Wilson’s Promontory, and more dust than you can poke a Dyson at

January 27, 2023

We were all a little sad to leave Cape Conran/Banksia Bluff after our seven days there as we’d had a nice time hanging out on the beach and catching up on some work and other things. But it was time to move on, this time to Wilson’s Promontory, about 3 ½ hours west back towards Melbourne.

For those who know their Victorian geography, you’ve probably noticed that we’re doing things in an odd order by heading as far east as we go, then travelling back west, and now north. If we’d had the choice we would have done it all in the other direction, but being school holidays, and this last week including the Australia Day holiday, we took what we could get with affordable bookings on the coast.

For our next spot, we struck gold at Shallow Inlet Campground. Right on the beach, all the sites are huge and very secluded, with bush on three sides to give a bit of privacy to each site. There’s toilets, but that’s it, but that’s fine for us as we travel with our own shower (and toilet too, when we need it). And for $20/night in peak season, on the beach it’s a winner. Right next door there was a caravan park, same deal (although they had showers), but $66/night for a much smaller site where your neighbours are just an arms-length away. One of the rules of camping is that the more you pay the less room you get, and this is a pretty good example of that.

Anyway, we were pretty pleased to be there, and be only 25 minutes from the entrance to Wilson’s Promontory, Australia’s oldest national park. Because of the dog factor, we had to divide and conquer again, so on day one I took Heidi into the park. It was quite a warm day, but we still wanted to conquer the summit (Mt Oberon) which is a nice steady incline for just over an hour. The views at the top were spectacular, and of course we were rewarded with all downhill on the way back. We then went and did another walk, an interesting little circuit (Lilly Pilly Gully Circuit) which was a bit hillier than we expected but Heidi as always, sets a cracking pace so I just had to put my head down and focus on keeping up.

The national park has some amazing beaches and a massive campground, so next time (there’s a long list of “next times” when we travel without a dog), I’d stay in the park itself to enjoy the beaches and walks without the driving bit.

Hamish and Jim had their turn the next day, then the day after that, we all went to a town called Korumburra, where they have an excellent outdoor historical village full of old shops, huts, houses and trains etc, and it’s all free. The kids were chosen to feed Bill, a duck who comes when you call him (if he sees you with the bag of food), and who clearly doesn’t go short on his breakfast each day. The kids are now back at school, so this was an educational excursion as well (pretty sure they’re learning more from all of those than their school books anyway).

Because of all the aforementioned issues with finding accommodation during school holidays, we could only stay four nights here, so it was time to pack up and move on. As well as our stuff, we were taking our weight in dust and dirt – one of the drawbacks of staying right on the beach is that everything is dusty, dirty, sandy and salty, and after this particular stay everything we owned is very, very dirty!

Next stop, Mongan’s Bridge, with a very interesting drive over the alps to get there.