Portland - December 2024 - Page 1

There are coastal views from the apartment we are staying at which is about 1km north of Portland city centre. This is the view further away from Portland.

And here is the view along the coast towards Portland.

More coastal view in the late afternoon.

Mystery tower. I think it has military origins. Now it is located at the lawn bowling club.

The first of many non functioning lighthouses.

Approaching the port area, it is a busy port, possibly hence the name of the town.

Industrial stuff happens to the right of here.

The pirate fun fair does not start until the day we leave.

Here are the first of many windmills. Nice clouds and light.

An almost otherworldly landscape.

A less interesting photo of windmills.

The coast along here is great. It is beyond the great ocean road so there are a lot less people. Too far for a day trip from Melbourne.

This area is called the petrified forest. It is not wood, it is eroded limestone.

More petrification.

More windmills.

More coast. I think this area is called the blowholes. A few people who decided to not obey the signs and safety barriers have died here.

Nice sky.

Windmills, nice rocks and nice clouds.

Very much like I am on another planet.

Around from the petrified forest is the main beach at Cape Bridgewater. A lot of junior lifesavers (nippers) were doing their training behind me. Taking photos of children at the beach is punishable by angry mob lynching so I made sure to keep the camera hidden until they were not in view.

The rocks here were very interesting. There is a seal colony about an hours walk away, a bit too far to go to today, so enjoy rock photos without any seals. I have a violent history of being attacked by seals.

More rocks. The cliff they have tumbled down from looked very unstable, I kept my distance.

Bonus coastline. The great south west walk goes all the way around and then on and on for at least another 100km.

Here is the main beach at Cape Bridgewater, with children doing surf life saving drills.

Here is the lighthouse. You can stay in the lighthouse keeper houses that surround it. There is a cafe here but it is closed over xmas, which seems a strange decision.

More lighthouse. It was very windy and it had been raining. This meant there were very few other people.

Most of the structures are very well restored, this one not so much.

Time to walk away from the lighthouse on the great south western walk. Excellent scenery again, but very very windy.

Here you can see the path. Some parts are signposted, but much of it is left like this, which is great.

Great coastal views.

Similar great coastal views.

There are windmills here too. Despite the huge amount of wind, none of them were actually operating. I believe this is because of the cold weather and lack of demand for power.

Lighthouse in the distance. Excellent views.

Around there at the tip of the land on the left is Cape Bridgewater from yesterday. You can walk there on a path like this for the entire journey.

Windmills.

Coast. Great skies.

Heading back now.

Almost back. Nice shrubbery.

Time for some more lighthouse.

Last one of the lighthouse.

The great southern walk continues along the coast back to Portland in that direction.

Here are some boats, you can walk all the way along the wooden jetty thing. Another grey day with periodic rain and cool temperatures, which is highly preferable to 40c which it will be on Thursday when we drive home.

Some more boats. Fishing boats sell fresh seafood from here, there was a line up of people waiting to buy.

Now for the main attraction of Port Fairy, Griffiths Island. The town is full of boutique shopping and spa experiences... however a lap of an island is more appealing.

The island is a conservation park for short tailed shearwater birds that fly here from the northern hemisphere and all arrive back each year on one of only 3 days. OK that is enough about birds. I cannot see any of them from here.

Instead it was time to look at the lighthouse.

Not as good as yesterdays lighthouse.

The path around the island takes in the mighty southern ocean.

Grey clouds.

Lighthouse in the distance.

You have to walk on the beach for some of the trip around the island, there are a lot of signs warning to not walk on the eroding sand hills.

Erosion.

Getting further away from the lighthouse.

Apparently there was also a quarry here, so I do not know if these rocks are man made quarry scraps or not.

Last one of Griffiths Island.

On the drive back to Portland, there was a brown sign pointing to the Crags. About 3km off the road. You used to be allowed to walk down there, but now due to safety and erosion concerns, you cannot. The island out in the sea had a plane crash land on it and kill everyone onboard during world war 2 when they got lost in the fog.

Opposite direction from the crags lookout.

The caves can be found near Bridgwater lakes turn off. There is a purple marker on google maps.

It is only a couple of hundred metres from the car parking spot to the main attraction. An extended Chinese family are enjoying touring the area.

There is Cape Bridgewater from a couple of days ago, and its many windmills.

As you can see it is not a cave so much as a heavily eroded cliff. Although I guess that is how caves start. I do not really know.

I waited a while to get a clear cave shot.

Time to head back down.

Over the road is the dirt road that leads to the parking area at Bridgewater lakes aquatic club. Here is a lagoon where you might shoot ducks.

This seems to be the main lake area, as there is a club house behind me, and just off camera people were trying to get their ski boat started.

Time to hit the trail. It is about 2km from the car park to a giant sand dune. On the map it is labelled discovery bay access path.

It was a very good trail, going past a lake.

Nice and wide, so you can easily spot snakes (there were none).

At this point I had already ascended and descended the giant sand dune. I think it has formed recently as signs and associated things were buried almost completely at the top.

My camera struggled with these shots, I had to really mess around with white points and black points, they were always very dark shots otherwise.

Same for this one. You can see the vignetting correction cannot quite cope.

I climbed back up the sand dune from the beach and here is the view looking back along the path to the lakes. It is higher than it looks probably. There is no way around.

A wall of sand dunes.

In both directions.

And as the path back to the car park came to an end, here is a full wide shot of the cave in the cliff over the road.