Wonthaggi Long Weekend

After 3 months of travel bans we took the first opportunity of the relaxed rules and hitched up the caravan. As Regan is working from home and Julie now has flexibility to work away from the office, we drove away mid Thursday afternoon and arrived at Wonthaggi just on dark. Only 1.5 hrs driving and traffic was ok. Best for us to get out of the city a day early as Melbourne roads are packed normally on a Friday night of a long weekend.

Being winter we didn’t expect great weather but apart from one night of heavy rain the days were fine but cold.
Friday was a work day for both of us and we are both very portable with laptops, independent power and broadband. The caravan table gets set up and apart from a couple of clashes with work meetings and talking at the same time, we are quite practiced at it.

Wonthaggi is an old coal mining town. Coal used to be barged to Melbourne by sea which is about 8 km away. Today the town is more famous as the site of the Melbourne desalination plant where fresh water is produced for the city. Not a cheap option and thankfully the plant has only be fired up 2 or 3 times in the last 10 years. There are also 6 wind turbines nearby. These weren’t rotating while we were there which I’m told is unusual as Wonthaggi does get a lot of wind.

The town was busy. Lots of people queued outside shops due to new social distancing rules. We are all confused and try to do the right thing. Very difficult to browse in shops when you are aware that you may only be one of four people allowed in the shop at any time.

We had a walk which took us into a troop of kangaroos. Some were big boys so encouraging them to move out of the way so we could pass took a bit of courage (or lack of). Spot the tourists who risk dangerous situations!

The town also boasts a rail trail. We hopped on our bikes and rode to Kilcunda- about 12km west. The trail cuts through dairy farms. We mentioned a few times that we could have easily been travelling on the west coast of the South Island with its very boggy and green land.
Kilcunda is just a drive-through seaside village but it was really busy with day-trippers at the beach and walking some of the rail trail.

Managed a restaurant meal as well. The social distancing was once again a strange experience as we sat quite a few metres away from other diners.

We headed home via Inverloch which is a seaside town we visited 4 and a half years ago. Lunch and a couple of big walks then the drive home. Traffic at one stage was crawling along but overall quite uneventful thankfully.Read more