Our short overnight stop turned out to be a pleasant spot with nice heath and low scrubby woodland. Lots of grass trees throughout. Off in the distance some sort of gunshot machine / bird scarer made irregular loud bangs. We guessed from the surrounding farmland we’d seen that the farmer must’ve seeded some pasture and was trying to keep to birds off it for that few days while the seed was exposed before germination.
We headed off down the highway towards Foster seeing all the signs off to the many ports along the coast and trying to choose which to drive into and have a look. On the map they look like sleepy coastal villages which to an extent they are but they also have ports, wharves, jetties and, in some cases, large fishing boats or fleets of smaller trawlers with refrigerated semi trailers reversed up loading last nights catch.
We knew Wilsons Promontory was going to be hectic crazy busy with no chance of camping but we decided to drive out and spend a day seeing the place. Wow! The drive out – once the rocks and the ocean and just the scale of the place becomes visible – is just spectacular. One of those places where you could just drive through without getting out of the car and you’d be overwhelmed with the amazing landscape.
We headed for Tidal River – full of campers as expected – but still some room for us to park and explore. We had a swim at the main beach which was very nice with the speccy views from a different angle while bobbing in the surf. We found a shady day-use picnic area to have lunch and then made use of the nearby amenities block for a quick shower (quick because the showers – like many others we’ve come across – are timed and either switch off the hot water or, in this case, start a beeping alarm to shame the person in the shower for exceeding their 4 minutes)-very difficult when you are trying to shower a child any yourself!.
Apart from other lookouts and viewpoints, we stopped in at Squeaky Beach to test out the fine, white “squeaky” sand. The boys could get a good squeak by running and jumping. Again, spectacular from every angle. As we were leaving we realised that a shuttle bus ran up to the one of the highest points – Mt Oberon it might be – but we were out of time and had plans to head out into the hills for our camp tonight.
We drove back out through Foster which would be an insignificant blip on the map except that it is the first town servicing the needs of the Wilsons Prom campers. A roaring trade especially during these peak times. Our plan was head high up into the hills and camp at Turton Creek Falls – again just a spot noticed on the GPS that had potential as a camp – otherwise the surrounding pine plantation forests would offer something. The drive up was steep but amazing views out to Wilsons Prom. The land was steep but still the farms managed to have rolling pastures with pine plantation up higher.
The Turton Creek camp was nice. No one around being mid week but likely attracts a few locals on weekends. The 4WDers and trail bike riders had dug the place up a bit but there were plenty of flat shady campsites. We set up right next to a nice little set of rocky rapids and the boys had their amusement for the next few hours. A couple of log trucks rumbled past slowly on their exhaust brakes but otherwise quiet, peaceful and very tranquil.
JALC-OZ-2018 