5 February 2012 - Rain and Beachport

Our first night of real rain since we started our trip. It started about 8.30pm the previous night as we were into the last of series one of 'Breaking Bad'. We have finally managed to start watching some of the shows that Uncle Mark saved for us onto our external hard drive.

It rained on and off throughout the night and continued into the morning. Although the campsite was quite sandy, some pools of water did form under the tent and annex floor but nothing serious. The canvas on the tent is fantastic and does a great job of keeping both wind and rain out, not sure I would go back to nylon again, except in smaller tents.

We decided to head down to Beachport, about 40km south of Robe and check out the long (700m) jetty that it is famous for. On the way we stopped at the 'Woakwine Cutting ' just north of Beachport. This is a cutting made in the late 1950s by two blokes (Murray McCourt and Dick McIntyre) using a single bulldozer, a 7 tonne ripper, a large dozer bucket and explosives! The cutting is 1km long and 30m deep at the deepest point, through solid rock, an incredible feat for two men. The cutting drained the swampy land at the top of the hill into a lake near the coast in order to turn the swamp into farmland. Definitely not the sort of venture environmentalists would allow these days but an amazing achievement all the same.

Beachport was very windy but a nice place to visit. The weather cleared while we were there and we managed a self guided tour around the local lobster factory. Lobster or crayfish is the main industry in Beachport and at $75 per kilo, it is a lucrative industry.

The wind has stayed with us during out time in Robe but has not hampered any of our activities. We say farewell to Sth Aus and hello to Victoria tommorrow as we head for our next stop in the Grampians.