We slogged through Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in an attempt to replace the holey boots Sam screwed to a tree in Melrose. No luck on that front. We did however manage a decent restock shop, including a gas refill at BCF, guaranteed cheapest in Australia don’t-cha-know! As the traffic mercifully dwindled to something we were more used to, we drove towards Wilsons Promontory. Famous for being the most southerly point on the Australian mainland. Because the weather forecast was lashings of Victoria’s best, with tops in the mid teens, cloudy, windy and with a high chance of rain, we wisely opted for a powered caravan site. We chose a caravan park at Yanakie, which is on the edge of Wilsons Promontory (known locally as ‘The Prom’). Curiously, the Yanakie caravan park was almost half the price of the National Park, which swayed our decision given our six night stay here.

The view from Bishops Peak.

With the wind-a-blowin’, we drove into the NP on our first day to climb Bishops Peak before the rain set in. This provided expansive views over the magnificent coast. The actual southerly most point in Australia (ignoring that island to the south) is a 30 km return walk from the closest car park. Had the weather been kinder, I might have attempted this as a day trip. Not to worry.

Views and adventures at Bishops Peak and why James seems to get tired bush walking.

We easily filled in the days with the boys playing on the local beach building their usual extensive monster truck cities, fishing (unsuccessfully) at a local tidal river inlet, and further visits down towards ‘The Prom’ to visit Whiskey Bay, Picnic Bay and Squeaky Beach.

James and the monster truck city at Duck Point, Yanakie.

K – reliving the 70’s beach holiday.

Whiskey Bay.

It was at Squeaky Beach that we ran into Brett and Kim and their boys Will and Brodie. We first met them in the Warrumbungles 14 long months ago. We were both doing ‘shakedown’ trips as preparation for our respective ‘Big Laps’. We’ve just clicked over day 328 and 34,000 km. They were on day 4 of their own 7 month adventure. It is indeed a small small world.

Sam and James enjoying Bass Straight’s best with new travellers Will and Brodie.

At least the last two days were sunny, warm and still. I even managed to brave Bass Straight with a swim and surf! On our final day we climbed from Tidal Inlet up to Pillar Point lookout with our friends before joining them for dinner and a pat of the local resident wombat.

Views from Pillar Point.

This was a rare occasion where we were driving back to our campsite well after dark and on the way home in the car we played a game counting the prolific numbers of wombats and wallabies on the side of the road. Our first of many sightings happened on our first drive into the NP. I absolutely insisted that the little furry speed hump was a koala bear as it waddled purposefully across the road. Granted that I may have been mistaken, all further sightings then became known as wombears or koalabats.

Pacific Gull at Duck Point!

K – I was awoken at dawn on at least three mornings by the most incredible bird song of the trip.  The dawn chorus must have contained over a dozen different bird types.  It was truly beautiful to listen to.  Curiously most of the birds seemed to fly away after an hour or so after dawn so the daytime chorus wasn’t at all as interesting.