Port Fairy to Penola (Coonawarra) 12^th December 2014

Port Fairy to Penola

We headed west out of Port Fairy in the direction of Portland. Portland is the oldest European settlement in Victoria and the only deep sea port between Adelaide and Melbourne. It has a large fishing fleet but what is more evident are the ships loading up with what appears to be sand. There is also aluminium smelting works in the city. Generally the town looks quite smart considering its industrial nature.

Portland

We took morning café latte in Portland's Tea-Tree Gallery, which had numerous rooms with a wide range of painting styles from landscapes to a Dali look-a-like.

Tee-Tree Gallery 

Air Banana

Dali?

From Portland we went to Cape Bridgewater to see blowholes and a petrified forest.  No holes were blowing, although there were good examples of basalt columns on the cliffs but the “petrified forest" was impressive. 

Basalt formation on cliff top

Basalt close-up

The actual cause of the Petrified Forest is debated and two different theories exist.  

"Petrified Forest"

To get to the Cape one has to pass through Bridgewater with a stunning beach 4km long and budding surfers.

Bridgewater - surfers paradise

The area was very windy, probably a regular occurrence since there are 29 large wind turbines all part of the 58MW Cape Bridgewater wind farm. 

Wind turbines

A little further down the road we spotted a mob of kangaroos. In fact today we saw more roadside kills of kangaroos than we have seen before,

The Mob

The route from Portland to Nelson takes one through about 30km of cultivated forests with sections of varying ages. The forest was protected with wide fire breaks and large tractor type vehicles were ploughing the soil to maintain the fire breaks. Similar large forests were seen on the road north of Mount Gambier in the Penola Forest.

Forest cultivation & fire break

From Bridgewater we travelled onto Nelson,  a very small village on the coast. This hosted a large number of black swans in the estuary as well as a pelican.

Pelican

Black Swans

How do you train 6 race horses at once? You tie them to a pick-up truck and drive at constant speed around a gallop track. Is this just an Aussie technique? Only wish I had my camera handy. 

Penola is our resting place for the night and only a stone’s throw from Coonawarra, which is a well-known wine area. The plan was to visit the wineries after playing golf at the local golf club but it looks as though the club is hosting a tournament and being Saturday it will be quite busy. Also the forecast is for temperatures to get up to 31C so we will make other plans for tomorrow, although the wineries will stay.