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The Giant Worm.
  off the Bass highway, an entertainment complex drew our attention with bright colours scripting indigenous animals in the native style across the body of a giant Earthworm. Modelled on 'Daktari', a 60's TV show about
English-speaking children and a cross-eyed lion living in an almost wild African savannah, I immediately felt intrepid and detached from reality in a most pleasant way. Primarily an education center for children and a refuge and haven for Australia's indigenous wildlife, the park has a charm of it's own and many efforts have gone into amusing and engaging visitors in the
perennial struggle of the native creatures in face of the impact of modern developments in human madness. Obviously the
entirety of their economy is involved keeping the Guanacos, dingoes and protected wildlife sheltered, healthy and safe. Although a great effort on the part of the owner and guardians of our creature co-inhabitants, I would suspect this educational wonderland would be an apt target for a well-heeled person's patronage, if they ever needed to support a good idea. Even just their Wombat rescue service alone would be well worth it.
Shaking the city
  After miles of boring suburbia and hobby farmland, we passed over a minor hillock and saw, on the shore in the distance, many giant wind power generators standing over a beachy town, inspiring Visions of safe power on the horizon. This was not a bad thing at all. The view of clear waters on golden beaches was uplifting as well.
Our thanks to the ladies at Wonthaggi Tourist information centre. Tireless and devoted, the team clearly pointed out the best bits of the area and there were more than I, at first, thought. Chat about windpower, desalination and failing wineries quickly turned the mood so we left abruptly for Inverloch, the next town along.
Inverloch
  With only slightly more appeal to me than Wonthaggi, Inverloch was beautiful and peaceful, full of people in shorts walking funny on ground too hot for barefoot teenage surfers and silver (this year - champagne-silver) SUVs. These days I always seem to notice there are lots of utilities trucks fixing powerlines just around a tight bend over a rise hidden by a tree, out in the wilds of, you know,
places like the Great Ocean Road, Lakes Entrance or bush scrub in the ranges, you know what I mean - so much better than old men painting lines on the road of the 70's or the unemployed picking up the chocolate bar wrappers of the 80's. Life must be picking up. We sat thoughtful and serene in the sand next to another edge of the world until the wind shifted and we discovered a very funky dead seal carcass lay between us and the waters. It inspired us to leave but not to go get food. We took to the road.
The smell of dead seal left far behind, we found Eagle Nest rock laying dry-ish and crumbly at low tide. Beautiful, timeless and treacherous, the rock shelf this sedimentary
monstrosity sat on seemed to quiver with each pounding wave assault from the cold picturesque sea. Many signs demanded that we watch out for
Falling Cliff but we didn't see him, probably in hospital, buying
band-aids or just plain gone home.
Seen from a boat sailing by the more dangerous side, the Eagles nest rock bears an uncanny resemblance to the top end coastline of Australia - from our side, an over-baked cake left to turn brittle and broken in the relentless salty sun. In the distance could be seen caves of some size
promising stories of pirates, treasure and nocturnal magic rituals but that was back in the same direction of the dead seal and I just wasn't up to it. Perhaps we could escape dread of that by heading inland.
Venus Bay
In the sun, 'Venus Bay' was a lovely photogenic beach, long, windy and miles from anywhere except for a local shop, a
sashimi restaurant and five fly-by-night real estate agencies. Fresh air, relentless sun and wind-bitten ears, the shoreline is a metaphor for the dispirited, a symbol, a place where the subconscious meets the sublime, usually in a remote windblown
car park, wearing white shorts, smoking peevishly and acting suspicious. We could have stayed forever but a brisk walk along the beach, a pine-lime splice and we were gone.
The amount of people at Fish Creek and it's sensible 'Personal fishing' cubicles had me admiring the capabilities of the local authorities in
promoting tourism interests.
Daunted, we turned toward the Strezlecki ranges.
Koonwarra The 'Toorak' of Leongatha, an industrial centre dedicated to processing milk and milk-related products, is a small slice of the upper crust stuck,
like cholesterol, on the side of an arterial freeway, boasting a "fairy
Garden"
promoting Aroma therapy, local preserves and hobby baking - very "Laura". We sat in the harmony garden and it probably worked, who knows? We bought bargain bin past-use-by-date bath foam, the only thing in the shop under $25 and a nice breakfast from the shop across the road.
The chef there used to work in "Mietta's"; a swish restaurant in
"Carlton", a swish inner-city suburb of an easily-confused Australian Backwash. The name of the streets are the ingredients for split pea soup except for Rough-Neck's Road, an excellent suggestion for a
street name anywhere. Oh you zany guys! The day spa sounded like just
what we wanted but cost more than a kidney replacement, so we had to
turn it down. To console ourselves, we bought overtly-expensive local
'Designer' food produce and complained about the escalating prices of
crappy foodstuffs back home just to bewilder the shop owners and
maximize the potential pleasure of our visit. (When we got back, I
gave the pickles to my Mum and dropped the gourmet tomato sauce into a
brotherhood bin. Enjoy!)
Finding that the Leongatha tourist information center was in
Korrumburra, 30 kms away, and having had missed the Milk processing Plant
Tour (dang!); we ate, belched and left for...
Korrumburra After 'help' from the girls in the tourist information booth
on how to pronounce the name of where we were and also their suggesting an
isolated and notoriously dangerous 70 mile dirt road logger's access
track over the top of the Strezlecki ranges for 'the fun of it', we found a motel of suitably
discrete nature on a hill guarded by an ancient blue Volkswagen. Not being able to find anyone attending the abode's administration we took advantage of shade on a lawn setting and watched the excitement of Korrumburra pass by. Not that hard to please, we watching the traffic wind pass for around half an hour then found the proprietor wandering the grounds suffering sunstroke and talked him into letting us a
twin suite with a spa arrangement. At the door of one of the units stood a young man with a
crew-cut covered only in shorts and tattoos, smoking a cigarette nervously. smells and flavours of David Lynch's Blue Velvet seemed to hang over this motel - or was it the whole town, we weren't that sure...
Next - More oblique tourist destinations, reports on
the quality of 'local' spa facilities and an interview
with some-one that may have been famous...
Uncanny, unsound and unsponsored,
'The Wandering Eye'...
signing off... |
