South Gippsland

The day after going around Philip Island was spent gently travelling down to Wilson’s Prom’. Most of WP is a national park “This 50,000 hectare reserve is threaded with a labyrinth of walking tracks that showcase all manner of magical realms sheltering abundant wildlife.”. While there is a range of accommodation available, there are very few sites that offer power, so we would be free camping for a couple of nights.

On the journey we stopped at Venus Bay because someone had said it was lovely, maybe it would have beenif the temperature was above freezing. When we pulled over to check directions, someone wandered over and started telling me about the difficulty he was having with his small refuse lorry. He reckoned that, if Bun and I pushed it, he could bump start it. Bun and I managed to push it maybe six inches before giving up ... it was a small refuse lorry! A few seconds later a bloke walks along and was persuaded to help. We managed to push it fast enough to bump start. I didn’t think diesels could be bump started. We wondered whether we had just been filmed for an Aussie equivalent to “you’ve been framed”.

Along the road, just before the campsite we saw our first wild wombat that ran across in front of us!

We arrived and found a sheltered site in amongst the bushland just behind the low dunes that run behind the beach. That evening we walked along the river boardwalk and planned where we would walk the following day (Wednesday).

Having heard that wombats were in the area, we went for a walk after dinner and came across another couple, but it was too dark to photograph them. Nonetheless, Bun was very happy.

We planned to walk from the campsite up to Mount Bishop, 354m above sea level. The day was beautiful and warm as it had been before we reached the state of Victoria, it was so good to be back in shorts and t-shirt. The path was extremely well maintained and a gradual incline for most of the way. We hadn’t set off until 11 and then immediately stopped for a coffee at the main campsite building. We arrived at the top at about 1:00. There were lots of people queuing to take pictures, we waited, took ours and then walked back to a big, smooth rock outcrop to sit and have lunch. On the walk down we detoured to take in a boardwalk sand wildlife walk where we saw a snake, probably 2 ft, later to find it was a tiger snake with potentially fatal bite, but still really exciting, only our third snake in the wild.

Rather than walking back to camp we walked up over a headland to pillar point and then back to camp arriving at about 5pm.

That evening Bun went on another wombat hunt, but earlier so that she could take photos. She saw six wombats in the wild, so lucky and so excited.

We slept well after our walk.Read more