This trip has turned out quite different to how it began. Seems less than a month ago we said goodbye to exploring the NW of Victoria in face of searing heat and fierce winds (and fire risk!) and headed for the SE coast of South Australia. A week on the wide stretches of beach along the Coorong staying at Kingston SE (plus a few days in Mount Gambier), we then put out our doormat at Port MacDonnell just south of Mount Gambier. Delicious long wind-swept beaches adorned with gorgeous brightly coloured seaweed, long slow walks along the water’s edge blew away the cobwebs.
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| Driving down from Cape Bridgewater into the sweeping Discovery Bay |
After a few weeks and many photos (of beaches and lighthouses) later we are now back in Victoria. First stop Portland - a bit of a tourist magnet but a fascinating place with incredible history - the Hentys, merino sheep, and some of my ancestors (not sheep even black sheep!).
We took a wander through the 'petrified forest' at Cape Bridgewater. The trunk-like columns looks like petrified trees but apparently they are not. Current thinking is that they were made from sand cemented by a mineral solution. That leave the question of why this shape - they must have grown up around trees. We saw similar formations on Flinders Island.
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| We are still in limestone territory. |
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| Cape Bridgewater Lighthouse built in 1882 |
Today we headed away from the madding crowd and after checking out the petrified forest and sights at Cape Bridgewater and inspecting the lighthouse settlement Cape Nelson, we dived into the Lower Glenelg National park and meandered right and left through beautiful temperate scrubland past tranquil mirror-like black pools back to Portland.
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| This tranquil pool was indeed like an ink pot - black and still. |
This western part of Victoria is intriguing. The basalt cliffs of Bridgewater Bay, the highest on Victoria's coast, are the remains of the enormous volcanic crater which stretched across Bridgewater Bay which is basically a massive underwater crater. Further inland we visited other craters such as Lake Cartcarrong which forms part of the Newer Volcanics Province volcanic field, which contains more than 400 volcanoes that have erupted over the past 8 million years, with the last eruption at Mount Gambier around 5000 years ago.
The area is pock-marked with craters and cones and where we were heading next was no different. Lake Cartcarrong formed when magma rose through the earth's crust and encountered groundwater. The contact between hot and cold liquid caused a violent explosion resulting eventually in a broad shallow crater which then filled with water. We saw such geological formations in Iceland a couple of years ago.
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| Tower Hill - Koroitj |
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| Lake Cartcarrong |
Tower Hill is quite significant as volcanoes go but I am not going to bore you with the detail. Suffice it to say there are a number of cones surrounded by a crater lake - we drove around within the crater. The Dhauwurd-wurrung name for the volcano is Koroitj.
Much of the western plains through which we were driving is pock-marked with craters and cones and where we were heading next was no different.
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