Just nine hours by ferry from Tasmania

This is the last blogpost from mainland soil, as for the next two months we’ll be in Tasmania.



The colourful bathing boxes.



We are filling in a few hours before we board the ferry, parked in a little area just south of the St Kilda beach and its famous bathing boxes.

Last night we stayed at a delightful caravan park at Mornington, obviously on Mornington Peninsula, and drove up the beach-side road on the western side of Port Phillip Bay to Station Pier, where we’ll return later this afternoon to board the Spirit of Tasmania.

This drive was mainly for us to know the way, which was dead simple, and we found the Spirit absolutely dwarfed by a hu-u-u-ge cruise ship pulled in on the other side of the pier.

So we then turned around, and found this little park where we can watch the sailing craft on the bay, as well as people parasailing, and the arrival of huge bulk cargo ships.

Melbourne is sunny and pleasant, a big change from the past few days when we were at Lakes Entrance and endured westerly gales and scudding rain most of the time.

We took a boat cruise a little way into the lakes system, which is immense and claimed to be five times the size of Sydney Harbour. This involved bouncing around in the chop as we passed the entrance from the sea, but things quietened down once we started getting into the lakes themselves. Lunch was at the Metung pub, then we set off again for Lakes Entrance . . . virtually blown home by the wind.

There were only 6 on board the boat which could take 47 (that’s the minimum they need to do a cruise) as several groups had cancelled when the weather got bad. We were so glad we went as the bird life on the lakes includes great flocks of black swans and pelicans. I’d never seen so many swans gathered in one place before.

The wind was so strong that night that even the motorhome was rocking, and of course we had taken down the awning the day before.

Just one of the Lakes Entrance sculptures, an army nurse
 and wheelchair. Part of the huge fishing fleet is in the
background

We were entranced by some chainsaw sculptures carved into huge tree stumps along the main street of Lakes Entrance. They commemorate the maritime history of the area, as well as a set which commemorate World War I veterans, including nurses and Simpson and his donkey, all ‘growing’ out of the tree stumps.

Last night we had to make sure we had eaten all our fruit and vegies as we can’t take any into Tasmania. And of course, there was just one onion left, and as we really didn’t fancy onion on toast for breakfast, I donated it to the receptionist at the caravan park.