We drove to Arthur’s Seat and parked just by the Eagle gondola ride. We had a bit of a look at the ride, and were thinking we might come back and have a go, but in the end decided that we didn’t need to part with over $50 to see the same views we had already seen on our walk.
The circuit walk is only about 2 km long (a bit more once you have wandered around looking at bits and pieces). We went down to the Flinders Cairn first. The views were great from here. There were another couple of lookouts also on our route, and all offered great views.
The paths varied over the walk. Some nice bush and also some beautiful planned garden vistas as we walked in the Seawinds Garden section.
There are a series of sculptures embedded in one of the walls at Seawinds – they are all ceramic sculplures by William Ricketts.
We enjoyed a cuppa in the car while we sheltered from the nasty cold breeze and decided that we would do a bit of driving and have a bit of a look at the western coast of the peninsula that we hadn’t had a look at. We drove out to the coast, emerging near Dromana, and working our way up. Most of the way there is native scrub between the coast road and the beach, so you can glimpse the wooden bathing boxes occasionally, but can’t see much of the sea. There were some clifftop areas, where we got a few glimpses through.
We pulled in off of the road to a little sheltered picnic area near Balcombe Bay. Here an estuary goes inland and a local friends group have worked very hard to set up great interpretive signs and a lengthy boardwalk along the estuary as it heads inland.
We followed the path , crossing over the narrowing waterway to the top of Augusta Street, before continuing inland a little longer. At the next crossover we again used the bridge and came out very close to Uralla Road. Here we headed back towards our carpark, still enjoying the lovely tranquility and the flat walking of the boardwalk. The only company was the the local dog walkers, and the wrens.
At Mornington we deviated out into Schnapper Point and the old Park near the Point. Apparently you can paddle board here, but today it would have been very difficult. There was lots of wind and lots of waves.
We now headed inland. It was starting to get late in the day. There are a number of good walks available at the Devilbend Reservoir that we were keen to take a look at. We found our way there, but by the time we did, it was getting a bit darker, and we really only had a few minutes to have a look at the sign there and get a feel for what the walking was like, before we had to get out of the car park to avoid being locked in. There are a number of shorter walks there and also a long one which circumnavigates the reservoir. Might be worth a visit next time we are over this way.
Now we were quite a long way from home, but it was dark, so we headed homewards on a road we hadn’t taken before – following along on the other side of the peninsula. We even took a side road out to the coast in the town of Flinders to get a glimpse of distant lights down the coast and an impression of what we were missing. We did note that there was a Golden Breed store here. We didn’t think the brand existed any more. Google tells us that there are still three Golden Breed stores in Australia and this is the head office!! (The others are in Byron Bay and Noosa Heads) Back in the day (about 45 years ago) this was a very sought after brand to wear.
It was an interesting and wearying day. We ate up the last meal from ingredients in our fridge and sat down to watch more of the Commonwealth Games, anticipating that this would be the last of our touring. There was a forecast for a very rough night and lots of rain continuing into the next day. In the end the worst of the winds missed us and the next day was actually a real beauty.
Luvapuzzle 