Roadtrip – The Prom: Part 1 (Melbourne to Inverloch)

I’m in cow country.

Lush, green rolling hills unfold around me as far as the horizon. Fields stippled with black and white cows – Holstein Friesians, bred for milking, and sometimes the familiar Jersey breed, with long lashes and caramel coloured hides.

It’s South Gippsland, and I’m heading to The Prom for a few days – Wilsons Promontory National Park, only a couple of hours out of Melbourne. Bushfires swept through the area in 2009, just as I’d been thinking of making the trip to one of the few places in Victoria that I’d never visited. I knew it would take a few years for the denuded landscape to recover, but almost a decade has passed since the fires, and I realise I’m well overdue for this road trip.

The South Gippsland Highway, the A440, meanders down towards the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland where it juts out into the ocean. On the map it’s depicted as a solid green headland, an area that can get lashed on both sides by the swirling tantrum of winds that chop into the open seas of the Bass Strait. It promises over 50,000 hectares of wilderness, it has over 30 self-guided walking tracks, and I’m more than ready for it.

Seeing an opportunity for serenity and isolation, and overcome with the need to escape the city and all of its habits, I’ve thrown everything into the car for the 200km trip – clothes for all temperatures, beach wear, food, plus the all-important walking boots.

You might be able to cover the 200km drive to the National Park in a couple of hours, but it’s far better to drop into the small towns en route, and have a more leisurely drive. I intend to take my time, and to do some exploring en route.

During my short detours off the highway, I first enjoy the village of Loch, with its impressive cluttered antique shop, dropping into a couple of cafes that are open on a quiet tuesday, and then checking out some of the heritage buildings – like the two storey red brick Royal Hotel (1917) which is now, sadly, permanently closed.   Next is Bena with a lovely old weatherboard Presbyterian Church, and a Main Rd completely devoid of traffic. That’s when you know you’re off the radar.

Further along, Korumburra is where I choose to eat my roadside picnic – a place that bans all types of wheel based enjoyment, according to the signage in town. Killjoys. (They missed Heelys by the way – sneakers with a removable wheel built-into the heel. There’s also no mention of go-karts. Must get back to Korumburra sometime with that billy-kart prototype.)

Following a suggestion in my Official Visitor Guide, I opt for the scenic drive from here to Inverloch, taking a right turn onto the C437 (Radovick St) so that I can really immerse myself in pastoral scenes. Endless fields and paddocks rise up and drop away into the distance, black and white cows lumber to the milking barns or graze on the abundant grassy pastures, and some low cloud skulks over the single lane road that ribbons off towards the coast. A storm is brewing overhead, the flash of lightning-strikes clearly visible from the viewing platform of the scenic lookout.

Before long, rain is lashing down on my windscreen. I pull-over to watch it unleash its fury, my car adjacent to a field of curious cows that begin to gravitate towards the fence and engage in a prolonged stand-off. As I take photos of them in the driving rain, umbrella in one hand and camera in the other, they begin to form a neat line at the wire perimeter so they can collectively stare at this intrusion. I sense I’ve interrupted their main occupation of chewing the cud, intensive digestion, and contemplation of the bovine life. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to them all day.

Back in the car, I watch erratic winds blowing sweeping curtains of water, solid torrents that seem to come from all directions. The drenching continues as I drive away, leaving the cows to their grass-filled thoughts. Little wonder then that this part of Australia is so green.

I have magpies and wattlebirds in my garden at the house in Inverloch. They flap about, visiting the trees outside the kitchen windows, as they search for a steady supply of insect nibbles. When the sun emerges, I take the opportunity to sit on the rear deck, surrounded by foliage, listening to the micro world at play – the waking rituals, the flapping confrontations of unseen birds protecting their branches of territory, the click and tap of insects. Deprived of such sights and open spaces, my city senses notice every birdcall, every sighing breeze that ruffles through the leaves. The peacefulness is hypnotic.

A walk along the beach from my house on Florida Ave to the town centre is a photogenic landscape of ocean remnants – dried driftwood, old tree roots and all the lost property of the sea. The stacks of roots and twisted driftwood stand at regular intervals on the sand, and from a distance they look like the pyres of signal fires waiting to be lit. But on inspection their twisted limbs, gnarled and blanched by salt water and sunshine, look more like shelters, like the skeleton frames of tepees that have been abandoned. They could just be old mangroves, but they seem to have been intentionally constructed – and whether they’re shelters or artistic expression, they make a captivating statement.

The afternoon drive to the township of Cape Paterson is on a meandering road that hugs the coastline. The Bunurong Coastal Drive is a picturesque 17km journey that provides endless views of sandstone cliffs, coves and beaches. Regular access points along the way entice drivers to park and come closer to the water – ‘The Caves’ is a site of dinosaur digs since 1994. Subject to the tides, excavations can occur for a few hours when the tide retreats and the treasures of the past can be accessed from the exposed rocks. The teeth and bones that have been found here are a reminder of the ancient history that lies in the sediment just beneath our feet.

At the beginning of time, before the land masses were pulled apart, you could actually walk from here straight across to Antarctica. From the rocky shore I stare out across the ocean and try to imagine this view without the sea.

It’s a fitting end to the day to walk a section of the surf beach at the Cape, ruffled and shoved by the wind, watching long lines of distant waves white-capping as they roll onshore. As they crest and unfurl, a brown cattle dog runs deliriously across the sand, covering the distance in seconds, barking and excited by the buzz of jetskis that arc around and follow the shoreline. Its joy is infectious, and I laugh, watching the mad dash, the speed, the exuberance. Undistilled happiness. It’s palpable.

**

Rain has been a theme of the trip so far. The humming drum of its incessant nightly rhythm, the deep green hues of the rolling hillsides as proof of its abundance, the shifting lid of cloud-cover that seems to trail my journey southwards.

Although the second morning starts again with rain, it soon clears, and ultimately it’s the sunset walk that proves most memorable.   I pick up the Screw Creek Estuary Walk from the grounds of the caravan and camping park at Anderson Inlet. There, a large group of school children are making camp, putting up tents and playing ball games as I walk through the resort. For the last couple of nights you could have floated a boat as the lashing rain tap danced across my roof. With more heavy rain predicated tonight, I don’t envy their canvas-covered beds for the night, or the wildlife that might want to seek shelter in their assorted tents in the next deluge. Huntsman spiders in particular. I relocated one from the hallway of the house to the garden on the night I arrived, its span large enough to cover the palm of my hand.

With the tide out, and at this high vantage on the track, the reflected sunlight gilds everything on the beach below, and with my camera in the gusting winds I try to capture the way the light passes through the clouds and turns the sands to gold.

It’s a fitting image on which to dwell, given I’ll be leaving Inverloch in the morning.   The splendour of the scene makes me think of poetry, of Wordsworth, and his love of nature:

“… and the sky,

Never before so beautiful, sank down

Into my heart, and held me like a dream” (Book II: The Prelude)

Tomorrow will be destination, Yanakie, and then on to Wilsons Promontory.