Into Victoria – Day 11

We had a lovely bed and breakfast in Robe, where we were the only guests. It was right on the seafront, with the breakfast room overlooking the bay. At breakfast purely for Laura’s benefit I read the accident report in todays Australian newspaper, relating to the ore train that ran away for forty six kilometres in Western Australia, before it was derailed. There were 240 wagons and the loss of the cargo of ore alone cost the company $220 million. A huge loss caused by not applying the correct brake.

After leaving Robe we passed through the town named after our grand daughter Millicent so naturally we had to take a picture, would have been better with the young lady herself in front of it!!!.

Lunch was in the original one horse town of Nelson. Situated on a river inlet, it had a grocery store come post office and little else, except picnic tables overlooking the river. It was quite unspoilt and had and amazing variety of birds. In my ignorance I ask one of my readers to identify this species from my photo.

By now we had travelled through half a time zone, Victoria and the rest of Eastern Australia is thirty minutes ahead of South Australia, so for anybody thinking of ringing me up we are now eleven hours ahead of the UK, it does make following Brexit and the Boro less stressful though, as evryting seems to happen in retrospect.

This afternoon saw us approach the western end of the famed Great Ocean Road; we stopped at the remote Bridgewater Head to watch the waves, and then drove through Portland to Port Fairy. This is a small harbour town situated on a river estuary, protected from the ocean by an island at the entrance to the harbour. Our hotel is brilliantly situated right at the water’s edge overlooking the boats. From there I was able before dinner to walk to the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour, through a reserve dedicated to the shot tailed shearwater.

This little bird migrates to Alaska and returns to the same nest and mate every year. (This is not new found expertise; I read the information board near the reserve).

The lovely evening sun enabled me to take some lovely pictures of the port before we had a simple pizza for dinner, sitting next toe a gentleman who had been born in Southampton before emigrating to Melbourne. For the first time I got the impression that the weather might be more settled.