We are already becoming aware that we only have a few more days left to look around the Peninsula, so we wanted to make use of a rain-free day today. Even though the weather-app was telling us that it would feel like 4 degrees we went in search of a different walk and a taste of the local drop.
The first stop was another part of the Mornington Peninsula National Park- Greens Bush. Here we enjoyed a walk on the Baldrys Crossing Long Circuit Walk.
The dots with an “E” are emergency markers. They all have their own number on them and you can ring 000 and quote the number so thay can find you really easily.
The walk was a lovely one, through native eucalypt with lots of ferny gullies.
We briefly met up with the longer Two Bays Walk.
There were lots of wrens, which were hard to see in the thick bracken, but easy to hear. We also spotted a couple of tree-creepers. One of them we could see was a white-throated one, but he didn’t want to stay still for the camera. We were lucky to see a cute little Eastern Yellow Robin.
We went looking for some lunch, finding that many of the usual spots were closed. Eventually we found someone who would sell us a pie for lunch and we sat over a huge pot of tea and enjoyed the tiles decorating the wall.
Onwards to see if we could find a winery who would offer a taste of the local drop. Sure enough, Montalto were open and happy to do so. We had to pay for a tasting, and the price would have been taken off of the wine if we had purchased, but we didn’t like any of it enough to pay for a bottle. The wine here tends to be very light compared to our favourite shiraz and cab sav in SA.
Montalto also had a sculpture walk to have a look at, so we took off down the path and scratched our heads over some of them, but enjoyed some of them too.
The HugRegina and the bearCovid Puppy“Abstractor”“Redemption” – designed to be gradually taken over by the ivy and taken back to nature. “Figure in Landscape”
The views back up the vineyard were pretty good, as was the kitchen garden (used in the restaurant)
and the local native flowers they had growing were great too.
We had a brief stop at Kings Falls on the way home to allow Trev to dash down to the falls and back while I snoozed in the car.
That’s enough for any day. It is a good night for eating in and watching some more Commonwealth Games excitement tonight.
We took a drive down to the tip of the Peninsula to see the Point Nepean area. This area has been significant for its use as a quarantine station and also by the military for training and defence. Both uses have left behind many traces to engage our minds. Once the area was no longer used for those purposes it was passed to national parks. It had been saved from human occupancy and now offers a beautiful area of bushland to enjoy.
The 100km long “Mornington Peninsula Walk” includes this section. This is also the area where Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing in 1967 while skin-diving. The narrow gap between Bass Straight and Port Phillip is a treacherous area, with sunken reefs which has seen many shipwrecks.
We started at the quarantine station. We had read that we might be able to get an audio information device, but the ranger on duty seemed a bit unsure. She didn’t really know how to use the ipods available for loan, but there were fairly clear instructions, so we figured it out together. They were actually loaded with lots of info about the area … it just didn’t neccesarily tie in to the location we were at – which caused a bit of consternation initially, but once we relaxed and walked around following the map so we knew what we were looking at, and listened so we took in the information as well, we were able to put it all together pretty well. It was much easier than reading lots of signs and offered more depth of information. The one drawback was that we had to have them back by 3:45.
We picked up the ipods at the information area (near the toilets on the map) and walked east (towards the top of this map) first. The first class area was a bit higher up the hill than the lowly third class.
first class hospital
There were also some newer buildings near here which we assumed were left from the days when the area was used for training the military. These accomodation blocks seemed to have been left to die a natural death. We used the beach access stairs to find the remnants of the old lime kiln (one of the original uses of the area).
Coming past the flagpole (across the parade ground) we then reached the crucial part of the quarantine station – the waiting room, disinfecting and bathing complex and the first of the main hospital buildings.
The disinfecting area was very similar (but in better shape) to the one we saw at Garden Island (near Port Adelaide) where our old SA quarantine station used to be. You could see through the windows to the bathing area where the unfortunate peope were stripped and scrubbed and then to the areas where their small allowment of clothing was disinfected either by heat or by chemical means, before being returned to them..
There were railway tracks to move the articles through the steriliser. There is a Trevor boiler (made by the Trevor Boiler and Engineering Company in Melbourne) so we needed a picture of my Trevor in front of it. You could see why it took a while to heat up.
We were able to go into one of the hospital buildings and the cook house behind where they all needed to cook their own meals. For years there was no plan at all for waste management. I’m not sure that would have helped the health of patients.
The area was used for a number of purposes – It was used in the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1919, taking returning soldiers from World War one, and was also used to house Kosovo Refugees briefly, as well as for training and housing military personnel and for dental training.
There is a lot of work going in to preparing a campground near the quarantine station at the moment. Lots of sturdy cardboard shelters around new plantings and platforms for camping on.
We took a break, heading back in to the nearest cafe, where we found some lunch, before heading back into the park a bit further west. We parked at the Gunners Cottage and walked from there towards the tip, along with lots of other walkers. This was to be the only decent day of the weekend, so it was pretty busy.
The tracks varied – sometimes they were sandy, between the twisted Moonah trees, sometimes we had to walk on the road, and sometimes we had a formed path off of the road. The only vehicles in this far were the parks vehicles or the shuttle bus that operates every half hour or so on a loop. And the bicycles.
Speaking of the Moonah trees, we heard on the ipod the fable of the girl and boy from the same family group who fell in love but were not allowed to see each other as their love was taboo. They continued to meet, so she was turned into a Moonah tree and he into a whirlpool in the ocean. You can still see the Moonah trees twisting towards the ocean and the whirlpools rushing to meet the trees if you look.
Old Cattle loading jetty
As we walked from the Gunners Cottage we started to see more and more remnants of the old fort that was here. There were many gun embankments hidden into the hillsides and, as you can see by the maps, there is a lot of infrastructure with tunnels, hidden guns, storage for artillery and living areas for the men involved in all this.
entrance to tunnel
The first Australian shots in both world war one and two were fired from here – both over the bow of ships as warning shots.
I didn’t get to investigate all of the joys at the end of the point – I caught the shuttle bus back to the Gunners Cottage and drove back to return our ipods to the office before they closed, then returned to wait for Trevor. I did find one interesting bird while I did this. Trevor walked back to the cottage, adding another 4 km to his walking on top of the 3km near the quarantine station and then the 5km or so that we had done on the way to the point. I guess we got our required steps in.
Today we had a really quiet morning, with a long sleep-in. We took a bit of time to get our bearings around the place and play some table tennis and pool, before starting a jigsaw (The edge is done except to 3 pieces) and doing some shopping for supplies.
Since the day was sunny (even though cold) we decided to make the most of the rain-free day by seeing a bit of the Peninsula. Cape Schanck is not too far from where we are staying, so we thought we would go and do a couple of short walks there and see a bit of the coast.
Close to the topThe boardwalk (almost at the bottom) Pebble Beach looking out all the way to Phillip Island and Wilson’s PromontoryWe admired this wattle
The Cape Schanck lighthouse towers over the cape, and could be seen from a number of spots along the boardwalk down to pebble beach and back (along with a busload of Asian tourists and some white browed scrub wrens.
Then we decided to go and have a bit of a walk closer to the lighthouse and took a stroll around the group of buildings there. By the time we finished up it was getting pretty chilly. It was even chillier when we decided to go for a walk in the dark to find tea at the golf course next door. Sadly they were closed, so there was no joy there. It was good to come home to a warm home, warm up our ears and noses, and to be able to cook up dinner without having to go out again.
Lighthouse precinctYou can even see the lens rotating up there.The track back to the car park. Great twisted trees.
We have done well with our selection of holiday time. The Commonwealth Games is on, so we might even get to see some of the competition this week while we laze around the place. (Or maybe I will see some, while Trevor goes out to do more walks- I’m currently trying to persuade him that I am not ready to do a 12 km walk tomorrow to Point Nepean yet.)
The weathergirl on TV tonight said it will be VERY cold for the next few days and we can expect a bit of rain in the next week, so we will need to try to pick our times to do our walking. Luckily we both brought our raincoats with us, so we should stay reasonably dry even if we get caught out.
We made the most of the morning in Hamilton – checking out just a little before 10 and then parking across the road and taking a look at the local botanical gardens. These are the 4th oldest in Australia, and may have lost their fine specimens of monkeys, peacocks and kangaroos, but they do still have some nicely set out lawns, sweeping vistas and an aviary with some Burke’s Parrots, budgies and Red Rumped Parrots. It was a pretty cold morning, but the walk was enjoyable. The small sensory garden created by the friends of the gardens had a good variety of texture, smell and colour which we also appreciated.
Fancy FountainVery interesting weeping tree Bourke’s ParrotBridge over the lake.Fence built after fundraising efforts- panels of wrought iron.
We had a brief stop at the local lake. Very few interesting birds to see.
We stopped just out of Penshurst at Mount Rouse – driving as far up as we could, and then taking the steps to the viewing platform.
Mount Rouse
We stopped at the famous Clarke’s Pies at Mortlake for lunch before getting on our way with a bit more application, realising that we were cutting it pretty fine now to make it to the ferry on time.
We arrived with about 10 minutes to spare to join the line just before the appointed 40 minutes prior to departure.
The Ferry crossing was fairy gentle. We left from Queensliff, where a new terminal is being built, and arrived at Sorrento.
Leaving Queenscliffbathing boxes in the distance
We made tracks to our unit for the week, which is situated in the middle of the peninsula. It looks like it will serve us pretty well.
We had brought some basic supplies with us so decided to stay in and have eggs and toast for tea before making use of our comfy beds.
We left home about 1030 and stopped at Keith for lunch before heading on to Serviceton.
At Serviceton we enjoyed a break and caught up with Judith and Graham Carter. Graham was working his way through the remaining 270 sheep that needed shearing.
The next stretch was a bit hairy as we took the back way/ short cut through to the road between Kaniva and Edenhope. This road became a basic muddy track at one stage and we were quite relieved to emerge at the other end in our non- 4WD Volvo.
The next stretch through to Coleraine included some really beautiful views of green countryside dotted with large old gum trees. There were many new lambs, so Graham wasn’t alone in the timing of his lambs ( just about to start arriving). Many Red-rumped Parrots and Crimson Rosellas were feeding along the roadside.
The steep hill down to Coleraine was bumpy and bendy. Pity help any truck losing his brakes and trying to make it to the grassy safety ramp across the up-lane.
Coleraine was displaying an interesting array of animal statues. We noticed two large gray kangaroos, a pig, a cow, a horse (of course) and a chimpanzee(!) as we drove through the town.
The light was fading as we came past the turn off to Wannon Falls (20km out of Hamilton) so we kept on our way, and arrived at our Motel just on 6 pm. We were right opposite the botanic gardens (the 4th oldest in Australia).
We enjoyed the convenient on-site restaurant, rewarding ourselves with delicious steak and red wine before heading back to our comfy room for the night.
Deserving driver after a long day on the road.
We had covered 510 km. That was plenty for our bodies still recovering from Covid.
Trevor and I decided to take Mum on a drive for her birthday, so we waited until the cleaner had finished and then arrived to pick her up from her unit at Morphettvale for a mystery adventure.
We started off by driving up the hill and into Clarendon. Here we stopped at the pub for lunch before heading onwards.
We tried to visit the Mt Bold reservoir, but it was closed for the day , so we had a brief stop at Kuitpo forest (The Eucalypts) to look for pine mushrooms (no luck) before continuing on the road through Ashbourne.
From there we took the Nangkita road as slowly as we could , and did a survey of how things have changed since the Diment family lived there. Lots of memories.
Nangkita Road
We continued on to Willunga, where we stopped at Tealicious tea shop for fancy cake and a cuppa before heading on towards home.
Tealicious at Willunga
There wasn’t much time left to rest before going out to dinner.
Erica did a quick rush trip down to Colonnades to pick up some knitting wool Mum was needing before we were in the car again and heading out to dinner.
We met all the direct family that we could (Jan and Ross are away and Ron was unwell) for dinner at the Duck Inn at Coromandel Valley for a nice dinner and a photo with the kids and Mum. Denise and Gary were over for the occasion (the first trip to SA in over two years).
Top Row from left Kathy, Denise , Trevor. Bottom row from left Geoff, Mum, Raelene.
before finally calling it a night and delivering her home again.
Sophia turned one last Friday. Our first grandchild is one already!!
For months now I have been working on a “quiet book” to give to her for her birthday, and I was really pleased to actually manage to get it done in time. It has taken many more hours than I expected it to when I first hatched the idea.
I really enjoyed the process, even though sometimes I was way out of my depth. I suspect that a quiet book on the first birthday might become a goal for each grandchild, (and a pleasure to provide) just as a baby quilt was their “welcome to the world” present. Maybe the projects will all improve as time goes on and I learn more.
Since I spent the time on it, and many of you have seen parts or heard bits about the book I thought it might be good to save the information for posterity and also to share…. so here is a glimpse at Sophia’s quiet book and some insight into my thinking for your enjoyment.
The aim was to supply little activities to help her to learn some skills but also to amuse her quietly so that she could sit down with the book and enjoy it on her own or with others.
I started with the goal of making ten different pages which I thought would be age appropriate or stretching her just a little at the age of one.
Each page is 6.5″ x6″ with the 6.5 being the width of the page to allow for a section for the fastening of the page into the book. The fabric of the page is welded to the batting back with iron on interfacing, giving some substance to each page. Two pages are fixed together by the edging , which is sewn around them after they are placed back to back. Eyelets are then fastened through the page to allow for fixing in to the book.
The matching fabric binding the pages helps the pages to all feel as though they belong together. Other than that each page has its own character and they can be taken in or out of the book as Sophia grows up.
The cover has the letter S (for Sophia) on the front and a 3.5″ wide spine between front and back covers which are 7″ x7″. I should have made them a bit wider and higher to come past the inner pages more.
The spine has eyelets 3″ away from each other on either side so that elastic can be threaded through the spine and meet again over a button closure.
There are pockets on the inside front and back cover to hold small pieces that may need stashing quickly for pack up and there is a magnet closure sewn in to the tab which comes around from the back to the front cover. (this was pretty fiddly, but I thought Sophia might enjoy investigating a magnet)
The Pages
In the Water
Sun saying “Boo”
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Button Flower
Shapes
Five little ducks
Twinkle Twinkle
Feed Mollie
Mouse (double sided)
Numbers Umbrella
Colour Pop-Sticks
In The Water
The two fish at the top swim across their elastic strings. The Pink Jelly Fish detaches from its velcro attachment. The snail unsnaps from its snap fastener and can move around. The orange octopus is a finger puppet and can come untucked and be played with (this was an early hit). You can move the ribbon seaweed aside to see the hidden shell and turtle buttons. The blue starfish has yellow bobbles which give a textural experience.
Sun Saying “Boo”
Sophia was enjoying the “Peekaboo” game so this was the inspiration for this page. The sun smiles happily, with lots of little bits and pieces to fiddle with and the hands, on longer ribbons, can be put over the eyes to play “peekaboo” with the sun.
Baa Baa Black Sheep
I really wanted to make this one as “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is already a well known and favourite nursery song for Sophia. The sheep was on a green ribbon so that he could not be lost, but I removed the ribbon before I gave the book to her, as it just made things too complicated.
There is a house for the Master, the Dame and the little girl who lives down the lane. Each has their name on the roof, which lifts up to give access to a pocket house. The bag of black wool can be put inside each house and is attached to the sheep’s home base by an orange ribbon (to avoid being lost).
Button Flower
This simple little page is just three flowers of graduating sizes and different colours with a large button hole in each one, so that they can be detached. There are a few hidden features to find. If I made this one again I would make the flowers tougher by making them double sided with interfacing stiffener inside. They may need replacing in time.
Shapes
A simple page with four basic shapes outlined on the base and attached by velcro. Take them off and replace them again and learn the shapes as you do it
Five Little Ducks
” Five Little Ducks went out one day…” At the moment Sophia could be endlessly entertained by this song. I’m hoping that the five little ducks and the mother duck “Quack Quack Quack Quack” will also entertain her as they go on adventures over the hill and far away. I hope they don’t stray so far away that they cannot get home to their safe pockets behind the blue water of their home pond.
Twinkle Twinkle
If you have Five Little Ducks then you have to have Twinkle Twinkle.
This page gave me a chance to gratuitously promote camping, starry nights, campfires and birdwatching. I’m pretty sure I can work some campfire songs into our book reading too if I try hard enough.
You can detach the big yellow twinkle twinkle star from his velcro home and dance him around. You can enjoy the southern cross in starry sequins up in the starry sky. You can unzip the tattered tent to see the teddy inside, and you can imagine sitting by the campfire. You can also flip up the cover on the tree and see the little owl hiding inside.
Feed Mollie
Mollie is the groodle that lives at Sophia’s house (her dog “sister”). I thought it might be fun to have Mollie feature in the book. Mollie can eat strange coloured dog-biscuits. They go in her mouth and can come out at her back and be fed back in again. If you look at the first picture above you can see the purple one going in her mouth and the green one coming out at the edge of the page. They travel quite happily in her tummy when the book is in transit. I hope that little hands will learn to put them in and take them out and that maybe the colours will be fun too. Mollie’s orange ball can detach from the velcro and bounce around. The little ladybird on the string is a nod to one of Sophia’s very favourite insects.
It was quite tricky to figure out how to represent Mollie and keep her looking like a dog, while allowing her to have a mouth that could be used for eating. I was pretty happy with the final result. Her “earhole” under her floppy ear looks a little strange, but hopefully Sophia won’t notice that.
Mouse
The little grey mouse on a long string can come out of his little corner pocket and can make his way through the holes in the double sided swiss cheese. I hope that he doesn’t get too tangled up.
Numbers Umbrella
I hope that this gives a fun chance to think about numbers and colours for Sophia. The umbrella supports ten strands of coloured string with 1-10 numbers of beads threaded on there. I had to use hot glue to try to fasten the strings securely enough for a toddler to play with this as well as sewing the strings in to the felt at the top and bottom. It’s certainly not the neatest of the pages in the book, but I hope it works OK for this special little girl.
Colour Pop-Sticks
The Colour Pop-sticks page is very simple, but I hope that it will also be a fun activity. Managing to slip the sticks into their little pockets will probably offer a dexterity test as well. I was really pleased to find the coloured starry fabric in the background of this page.
That’s it for now, except to say that the book came second best to the set of plastic measuring cups and star shaped pastry cutters that were given to Sophia at the same time. She did actually show signs of interest in the book and the octopus had been around the place a bit before she left our place. This gives me hope that the book will entertain her for many hours in the future.
Her very kind Mum sent us a photo from home later on showing her playing with the book again. I think she is trying to figure out how that bead can be detached from the elastic!!!
Sorry about the red marker. It didn’t want to leave the map.
Day 2 started with a cooked breakfast at Rodney’s with toast made from his delicious home made bread and eggs from “ his girls”.
After packing up, and a quick tour of the garden, we were off around 10- just in time to see his next visitors arriving (some people from NSW chasing up on family history in the local area).
The butterflies were already warming up near the Lantana
and Rodney showed us the milkweed plant that the caterpillars love so much (it now looks very chewed)
and a few late caterpillars who were still trying to stock up on the last of the goodness from it before also becoming beautiful butterflies.
We took the road via Blyth, Brinkworth and White Cliffs reserve
before joining up with Horrocks Highway just after Yacka.
Rodney had told us that there is a new road out from Wirrabara that allows you to drive to Bluff lookout (at the top of the range). It sounded good and would give us a good potential lunch stop so we aimed for the Wirrabara forest next.
New road shows darker and joins up with red track
Unfortunately our plans were foiled by a closure for feral animal control, so we will have to try again another time.
The sign certainly made it look worth the drive.
We had lunch at the new forest picnic ground instead. They have a couple of good shelters, toilets and bbqs.
We also stopped at the historic nursery site and read that this and nearby Bundaleer were the birthplace of Australian plantation forestry! They used bamboo tubes to raise their tiny trees – one seed plus some soil in each bamboo, which was then planted out when the seedlings grew.
Men planting out seeds into bamboo tubes
There was a lovely old wood table and profusely flowering gum among the other treasures at the old nursery site
The next step was Melrose, where we hoped to check all the control sites on two maps-one on the bike tracks above the town (ups and downs) and the other out at the Showgrounds. Both of these have permanent markers attached at the control location. Sometimes the markers go missing. We’ve been to most of them together on a previous checking trip, but since we had a lot to do and not much time we decided to split up today. I dropped Trevor off to do the hilly ones and headed for the Showgrounds.
You could see the popularity of mountain-biking in this town. A thriving mountain- bike cafe and the bright orange signage for tracks, with even a Strava “ king of the mountain” sign.
I managed my checking without trouble and returned to meet up with Trev again an hour and a half later. My only excitement was a rather large and beautiful snake taking shelter from the rain under the verandah (as was I) . We gave each other a wide berth.
Trevor still had a number of sites to check so I dropped him off part way up the hill and drove back to the lookout, leaving the car and heading out to check one on the spur of the next hill. In hindsight we should have left the car at the bottom probably. The rain was becoming heavier as we worked, so we both arrived back from this venture quite damp, but with the job accomplished. Sadly I had the keys so Trev had to wait for me in the rain. There is one control that needs replacing. With rain still falling and not a lot of day left we decided it wasn’t a job for today.
We headed for our cosy cabin in Laura, driving out from under the rain clouds as we went. Laura had only had a very light sprinkling early in the day. We picked up some giant twins (icecream with chocolate coating) as we checked in at the caravan park. This is, after all, the home of Golden North Icecream- the best in the world.
After winning a $50 voucher each in the state tourism ballot we decided to use our windfall to assist with the costs of a trip north. We haven’t been this way for a while and we decided to fulfil one of our orienteering responsibilities and check the permanent orienteering course at Melrose is still looking healthy. Our club (Tintookies) maintains this course and Trev and I take a special interest in it. More of that tomorrow.
After our normal Meals on Wheels delivery round we headed home for our own lunch and packed the car to head off.
We made a quick stop at Plympton to collect the repair kit with spare control markers so that we could do maintenance on the spot if it was required. We also stopped for fuel at Gepps Cross since it was 20 cents a litre cheaper there.
It was good to get out on to the open road again. The country is looking dry, but hopefully good rain is not too far away now.
We arrived at our friend Rodney’s place at Owen and, after a cuppa decided we had time to try the new maprun course that has been set up around this lovely little town. Trev was game for a run, so he took one paper map. Rodney took the other, and I used the map on the app. Trev and I both have the maprun6 app and have used it on a few city courses. There are no physical markers, but your phone lets you know with a sound when you reach the correct position, and records your time. If you want a paper map you can download one from the Orienteering SA website. Rodney and I walked together. He knows the town very well and did a great job of planning our route to teach all required locations in the most efficient way. He took to the challenge like a true orienteer. It took us 45 minutes to do just over 4 km at a rapid walk. Trev took 33 minutes to run them in a different order of his choice The points turn green on the map after you find them.
The route took us through some nice bush (including a grove of quondongs), past the free camping by the old oval, to the wetlands, across the golf course, to a couple of historical bits of farm machinery and also past some murals painted by a local artist. The start is just near the painted silos, so we could check them out too.
The wall art is pretty good in this town. I particularly like the bee house.
I talked Rodney (still holding his map) into standing in front of the big butterfly wings.
Quick showers were had and then it was off to Balaclava for a meal at the pub. We did a bit of a drive around there looking at the local areas where a similar maprun course could possibly be set up. Boy there is a lot of open recreational space in Balaklava .!!
This town now looks pretty good too after a concerted effort to do up some of the historic buildings, plant more street trees and plants and even some very effective lighting. The local courthouse gallery leave a light on inside so that you can admire the lovely lead light above the door. Even the pub looked as good as the meals.
Luvapuzzle 