Journey by photograph: time spent in Portland

Thursday 5^th May 2011 Our first stop after leaving Koroit is at Port Fairy, a small fishing town on the coast with huge Norfolk Island pine trees lining the main streets. This would have been a busy mecca during the past holidays however now the tourists are mainly folk travelling like us. We stopped at the wharf and had our cuppa whilst checking out the fishing boats moored at the jetty. Some of them were for scenic tourist rides and were quite big whilst others were working boats with sparse fittings other than for the numerous aerials attached to the top of the wheel house. There are many lovely old buildings in close proximity to the wharf and date back to the early 1800’s. Customs, harbour master house, court house, hotel are just some of those still standing proud.

Leaving Port Fairy we head further west along the Princes Highway with Portland our planned destination. Our trip takes us through much green pasture land and the beef and sheep abound. There are Devondale (black and white) dairy cows everywhere and the new calves are easily seen amongst the green grass. We see another wind farm with hundreds of wind turbines slowly turning in the constant breeze from the coast. This coastline certainly is an appropriate place for making use of this freely available energy.

As Portland is only about 95km from Koroit our trip is soon completed. There are a few caravan parks on offer and we decide to stay at the edge of town. Plenty of room, lots of trees and the chance of seeing koalas so the brochure says. The Information Centre is set up down on the bay with a Maritime museum set next door. Portland is the birthplace of Victoria as it was the site of the first white settlers in the early 1800’s. The harbour provided safe haven for the fishing fleet from the weather from the Southern Ocean and for many years this was the main industry of the area. The port also provided easy access for the trading vessels which called to pick up wool and wheat for export to other ports. Today Portland is still an export harbour for grain and aluminium from the Portland Aluminium Smelter. The raw bauxite is brought in by ship and travels along an above ground pipeline from the harbour out to the Point Danger plant. There is also a wood chipping plant near the wharf and the logs are piled high and wide waiting to be processed then added to the piles of chip waiting to be loaded into the freighters standing off shore. We could see 5 ships waiting to enter the port.

tuna fishermen at Portland cleaning their catch after a days fishing out on the Continental Shelf

Cape Nelson lighthouse stands tall and is built from local bluestone (now painted white of course). The story is that the local supply ran out and further stone had to be brought approx 30km by bullock teams to allow completion of all the buildings. There is also a rubble wall 4 foot high that was built to provide protection from the southern gales for the men as they walked from the living quarters to the lighthouse and signal station. The buildings are now used for tourist accommodation purposes and one is a small café.

On our way to the lighthouse we called into Yellow Rock which is said to be popular with artists. Seeing the wonderful colours in the sand and rock formations I can understand why.

We also visited the gannet colony we had thought was on the mainland at Point Danger just past the refinery however, once we arrived there we found that the gannets are actually out on Lawrence Rocks just 2km off shore. There are 6000 pairs of birds breeding on the rocks and in the photo the whiteness that shows is actually the birds. Would be a little crowded I should think.

Lawrence Rocks gannet colony

We walked (lol) out to view the seal colony at Cape Bridgewater. The seals could easily be seen after our hike up and down and around the headland. We certainly had our exercise with this walk.

along our 'trek'

sleepy seals

playful seals

The seals seemed to be playing in the water and a group of about 6 seemed to be having a jumping contest between them. There would have been about 20 in the water at that spot. Others were lying up on the rocks just taking it easy. Info stated that there are about 650 seals in this colony and are mainly young juveniles with some older males no longer able to protect their harem. The closest breeding colony is at Lady Julia Percy Island off Warrnambool.

On the other side of the headland we drive out to see the Petrified Forest. This is not really a forest at all but formations of limestone that look like tree trunks, created over many years by the elements of this rugged coastline.