Lorne, VIC

Fr 13 Feb 1998

To Lorne, the Monte Carlo of the South. Lots of alfresco cafes and the like. One of the brochures remarks "that Lorne is so nice that even modern development doesn't spoil it".

Setting out from Torquay on the Great Ocean Road, we came upon Bells Beach, the mecca of surfing, remarkable for the fact that you'd have to be super fit to surf there because the way off the beach is up two hundred stairs and that there's only room for twenty spectators.

Anglesey is a tiny town nestling in a sheltered river valley with all the charm of the Entrance before the current generation of planners spoilt it with new visitor-attracting features. There are supposed to be kangaroos on the golf course but they didn't know we were coming so they stayed indoors like the koalas in the gas commercial.

Split Point Lighthouse looks down on Cathedral Rock, our first glimpse of the characterising feature of this coast - remnants of eroded sandstone holding out against the onslaught of the Great Southern Ocean, standing high out of the water like some precarious building block tower just before the collapse.

The scenery is certainly impressive. The enormous power of the sea in constant battle with the rugged resistant land creates a dramatic situation.

Despite this and despite the wind and the stunted vegetation, there are many, many birds, Great Cormorant, New Holland Honeyeater, Singing Honeyeater, Raven and others not identified.

As we parked in Lorne to go to the Information Centre, another Winnebago T4600 parked behind us. Don and Maureen Kennedy from Gladstone in QLD were on there way to WA to attend the Geriatric Motorcyclists Rally and to visit children and grand children. Their rig is only 3 months old so we spent quite a time over afternoon tea comparing notes.

Stopped in the Cumberland River Caravan Park which is jammed between a river with sheer cliff for its farther bank on one side and a steep wooded hill a few hundred feet away on the other. The idyllic setting is marred only by the profusion of humans all doing camping things with tents and fires and barbeques and four wheel drives, such a pity. We contribute almost nothing to this as we sit in isolated splendour in our castle, the Motley, doing our self-contained thing with a proper dinner and a gin and tonic