Yesterday, I went on an adventure.I've spent a ridiculous amount of time indoors these past couple of weeks and it was time for a change. So I got up when Jen got up to go to work, and rode the tram downtown with her, and headed off on my own from there. My goal for the day was to check out Point Nepean National Park, which, it turns out, is a long, long, LONG way from home. Once I'd seen Jen off on her tram towards the school, I jumped on the Frankston train and rode it all the way to its end. And from there I got on the bus to Portsea, which took me all the way to the entrance to the park. Total travel time from our house? 3 1/2 hours - one way! Good thing I took a book along with me! The route to the park took me all down the side of Port Phillip Bay, the huge bay that Melbourne is on, and the ride was actually quite pretty.
To be honest, I wasn't at all sure what to expect when I got there, but I was pleasantly surprised. I knew that the park sat at one of the headlands to Port Phillip Bay. I knew there was an old fort at the very tip. But that was about it. Apparently Point Nepean has only been open to the public since 1988. Due to its strategic location, it had previously been used as a military fortification since the 1850's or so, right up until the end of WWII. This means, among other things, that there are a lot of unexploded bombs and other ammunition laying around - so about 2/3rds of the parkland is still not accessible, for safety reasons. Even in the areas where I could explore, there were signs everywhere to tell me to stay on the path, don't go down to the beaches, etc. etc., because of the danger of unexploded bombs. Good grief!
Because of its isolation, Point Nepean shelters a number of plants and animals that are now rare elsehwere in coastal Victoria. I saw gannets, terns, dolphins, a cool lizard, and tons and tons of butterflies. It was interesting to see how the land changed as I walked towards the tip of the peninsula. On the Pacific side were sheer cliffs and pounding surf. On the Port Phillip Bay side the waters were calm, shallow, and sure looked awfully inviting to swim in. As I neared the tip of the peninsula, the trees became smaller and smaller and then were replaced entirely by scrub. All along the peninsula were a number of old military installations, now slowly crumbling away. Along with forts at Queenscliff (the other headland to the Bay), Point Nepean played an extremely important role in defending Melbourne's harbour during the gold rush years. The fortifications were manned until the end of WWII. I found the gun placements where Australia's first shots of both world wars were fired from. What was really cool was that most of the fortifications were built right into the hillsides - so there were all these tunnels to explore, and you never quite knew where you were going to end up.
The other reason I'd come here was to see The Rip, the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. It is apparently one of the most dangerous navigable stretches of water anywhere in the world. But ships who want to make port in Geelong or Melbourne have to pass through here. Only one narrow channel in the middle of the already-narrow Rip is passable for big ships, and my understanding is it's quite the operation to get through the passage. There were sure lots of satellite towers and lighthouses all along my route! I didn't get to see any big ships pass through, but even so I could still appreciate how narrow an opening The Rip is, considering the hugeness of Port Phillip Bay!
I'd walked from the visitor centre all the way out to the tip of the peninsula, about 7kms or so, and boy was I tired. I had stupidly left my knee braces AND my hiking shoes at home, so I did the whole trek in my sandals. So I wussed out and took the transporter back to the park entrance, where I bought myself an ice cream and waited for the bus to take me home, and enjoyed being off my feet. Somehow that 3 1/2 hour ride home was MUCH longer than the 3 1/2 hours out! Probably because I was getting awfully hungry.
As we pulled into Frankston, where I would swap my bus for a train, we passed by the waterfront - and there was a sand sculpture contest going on! So I hopped off the bus to go and take a closer look. Unfortunately the exhibit was closed... and it would've cost $10 to get in anyway (good grief!), so no go. Someone had inconsiderately raised a huge fence all around the sculptures so from the outside you could only see their very tops. (Hence how they could get away with charging $10 to see piles of sand. Craziness.) But there was a car park next door to where the sand sculputres were, and it had a second level, so up I climbed and managed to snap a couple of shots of the castles.
And that was basically my day! Even though it took me such a long time to get home, I still beat Jen - she'd forgotten that she had a first aid course to do for school last night. When I got home I discovered we'd acquired yet another new house mate, Rob, who's a Melbournian just returned from overseas. What with one thing and another, and a couple of good shows on TV last night, it was almost 11pm before I crawled upstairs (cursing my sore feet all the way) and into bed!
Oh - and I've added more pics on facebook from this adventure. They straddle two albums (curse Facebook's rule of only having 60 photos in an album... as if that were enough...):
