Wilsons Promontory

Tuesday morning, the 12^th feb, we left Erica and headed to a free camp near Foster. We went through Mirboo North for some great coffee and some pretty spectacular farming land in central south Victoria. You can see how dry it is through Victoria, very much still in drought.

We continued on through Foster and pulled in to the Franklin River Reserve. It is a great free camp with a creek like river flowing through it. Unfortunately a cold change had come through and it was raining solidly which was not a good thing for my leaking four seasons hatches. So I had to move quickly to get tarps on the hatches.

After setup and lunch we played a board game in the van to get away from the rain and that was fun. We then went for a walk between raindrops. Unfortunately I did not get any photos but it was a beautifully grassed free camp with good serviced toilets. The town of Foster whose council looks after the place would definitely reap the rewards as there were so many campers there overnight, many of whom would spend some money In Foster. We will be spending money in the shire as we leave Wilsons Promontory. There were so many campers that I was not sure if we would be blocked in when I wanted to leave in the morning.

Part of the reason for going to a free camp that day was that the proprietor of the Yanakie Caravan Park was happy for us to have an early arrival so that we could go into Wilsons Promontory and have enough time to check it out. Additionally he allows a 12 midday departure so if we wanted to go back into the National Park (NP) in the morning we could. We only wanted to spend the one night in the van park as it was $39 a night for power and water. The reason he can charge that is the NP charges $65 a night unpowered. So going to a free camp nearby and arriving early at the new camp meant we could do the NP the same day and no rush to leave the next day.

So that is what we did. We setup at Yanakie van park, made lunches and headed into the NP. But before we get to that our setting in this park is pretty nice as it has a frontage to the ocean.

After a tip from some campers at our van park we chose the Mount Bishop walk to make our assault. Light, brief showers occurred during the walk but the blue gum forest was beautiful, especially when the sun came out.

At the top there were firstly great views of the hills and valley behind the main beach.

Then there was an amazing panorama of three beaches and headlands when you got to the final point.

On the way back down there was a different track that took us via the Lilly Pilly Rainforest Walk. It was quite an amazing rainforest.

I don’t know what the name of this bird is but it is a yellow breasted thing. A nice bird.

There were a large number of birds all along the track that inhabited the area. They were like a willy wag tail thing, not black and white,  but a bit smaller with a bit of grey and blue. When you stayed still they would approach you very closely, saying, “Take a picture, come on, take a picture.” But they would flit about and I did not have time to zoom in and give you a good picture of them, so they don’t look much on the screen. Make sure you try and enlarge them.

Back at the carpark after a long walk it was good to snap a photo of where we had just been.

Dropped in to check out Squeaky Beach. The granite formations are pretty amazing as they are all over the NP.

Then it was back to camp and attending to domestic chores, such as filling the water tanks and charging up all items whilst we have the 240 volt. Had a relaxing night and a great day. The weather was very ordinary for the most part but one thing I noticed is that every time we needed it to be dry it was dry, and when it didn’t matter it rained or was very windy. We were very blessed. Praise God.