Weekend Camping Trip to Prom Country

Since Stu bought a car, we've been trying to get out of Melbourne almost every weekend. We spent a 3-day weekend down in Prom Country.

Prom country is the southern region of Victoria. It consists of primarily farmlands, coastline and a national park. It's about 3 hours southeast of Melbourne.

Our first stop was Venus Bay.

We were hoping for some good surf, but the onshore winds wouldn't allow for it. The beach was beautiful though - Venus Bay has one of the longest and straightest beaches in Victoria. When you look along the coastline, the beach just disappears into the horizon.

It was quite deserted that day - perhaps because it was chilly, windy, and the surf conditions weren't ideal. We walked along the beach and sat along the sand dunes, watching the whitewash before heading to our camp spot for the weekend.

We stayed at the closest caravan park to Wilsons Promontory National Park. Prom Central Caravan Park in Foster is only 25 minutes away from the entrance of the park.

Our second day was spent exploring the beaches and mountain of Wilsons Promontory National Park. There is only one long road into the park. It winds alongside the western side of the peninsula, but it is rare to see the ocean from the drive, so you definitely need to park the car and walk a kilometer or so to the beaches.

One of the first points of beach access is Darby Beach.

Wide open beach with bordering sand dunes.

Squeaky Beach was next in line. This beach is famous for the sounds the sand makes when you step on it. Didn't sound too squeaky to me... more like crunchy.

Squeaky beach has a section with a maze of large boulders where the kids like to play hide and seek and climb to the top. My favorite part of the beach was the white sands and clear tidal river.

We then parked our car at the national park headquarters and took a shuttle to another part of the park - the base of Mount Oberon. The hike up Mount Oberon is short - about 3.5km - but steep. Because the walk is paved and steadily inclines, I didn't find it too challenging. Definitely worth taking an hour or two out of your day to reach the summit. 

Mount Oberon overlooks Norman Bay and a large tidal river which flows into the Bass Strait. Norman Beach was primarily visited by the weekenders staying at the park. There were hundreds of families and friends staying near the headquarters - quite a festive atmosphere with rows and rows of tents, bicycles, and vehicles.

We decided to take one more trek and visited Cotter's Lake and the neighboring beach. The lake and beach are accessible by the park ranger maintenance road - the path is still quite rugged and grassy. It seemed as if a car hadn't touched the tracks in quite some time.

Beach, north of Darby Beach.

It was a beautiful time of day - the sun was just about to set and no one else was around. This area was quite different than the fern-y paths to the beach and tall trees along the Mt. Oberon walk that we had trekked earlier. We were surrounded by fairly tall grass and then washed up driftwood before reaching the beach.

I get a huge kick out of seeing animals in their natural habitat. I was bummed that all day I had only sighted the tail of wallaby hopping into the bush. But on the walk back from Cotter's Lake, I spotted wildlife! Long necks attached to bird heads lifted from the tall grasses and quite close by, a family of kangaroos turned their heads and looked at us walking along the deserted path.

On the last day, we drove to Melbourne via Philip Island. We surfed for a few hours before heading back to the city.

I would recommend this trip to anyone who has a few days to get out of Melbourne. It was a low-cost weekend with some really great sights.

Wandering Plans

I've been in Australia for one year now. It has been great fun and a step forward in my career, but the stars have aligned to allow for more travel... and this time, I have a partner in crime!

Stu and I will be leaving Australia next month for some open-ended travel.

July 10 - 30: Vietnam

July 30 - August 6: Singapore

August 6 - 15: Bali

August 16 - September 16: New Zealand

September 15 - 20: Hawaii

September 20 - 30: California

October 1: Whistler

Quite excited about visiting some new places. My mother is Vietnamese and this will be my first trip to Vietnam. We'll be traveling with friends from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi (South to North) in 20 days.

Then, I'll revisit Singapore and Bali to spend time with Stu's family before heading to New Zealand.

I have wanted to visit NZ for years now, so this month-long trip to Stu's country will be quite special. I'll be based in Auckland but will hopefully make a trip to the South Island to see Christchurch and Queenstown.

We then fly to the United States with a 5 day pit-stop in Hawaii. Another first! After learning how to surf over these last two years, I'm quite excited to check out the waves of Oahu.

We'll land in Los Angeles to see friends and family before heading north to Vancouver for a snow season in Whistler.

Stay tuned for more adventure travel stories!

Planning on picking up the awkward vlogs again! First post will be Vietnam!

Day 4: Wine Glass Bay

We decided to spend our last day taking a tour to Wine Glass Bay. We booked with a small company, Wine Glass Bay Tours. Our tour guide, Rob, is an outdoor education professional and provided us with some great facts about Australian wildlife (Stu wanted to know what to do if a snake bites you) and gave us freedom to explore at the various stops he had planned.

+61 03 6265 7722 or +61 0407 778 308 

bookings@wineglassbaytours.com.au

www.wineglassbaytours.com.au/

We boarded our shuttle van (total of 6 of us) and headed to the Freycinet peninsula on the east coast of Tasmania. We stopped at a few points to take photos, buy clam pie, and pick blackberries. Our ultimate destination was Coles Bay and Wine Glass Bay.

Baby mussels bunched up at the rock pools of Coles Bay.

Face in the large boulders on the walk to Wine Glass Bay.

The hike to Wine Glass Bay is relatively short. You can view the Bay after 15 minutes of walking up the path.

View of Wine Glass Bay from the top of the trek.

From the viewing platform, it takes another hour or so to trek down to the beach. The path is quite steep and rocky and takes a bit of endurance to get back uphill to the car park - but worth it! Wine Glass Bay is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Wine Glass Bay.

The ride back to Hobart was a quiet one since we were a bit tired from our climb out of Wine Glass Bay. We went to bed early to catch our early morning flights before being back in the office the following morning.

Quite a few wallabies hopping around the parking lot at the Wine Glass Bay car park.

Day 3: Museum of Old and Art & Hobart

We started our day traveling back to Hobart. We checked into the Brunswick Hotel backpacker hostel and dropped off our rental car in the city.

We were looking forward to a relaxing day of drinking and walking through galleries at the Museum of Old and New Art (known as the MONA). The MONA is accessible by the privately-owned super yacht ferry. We splurged on the 20 minute ride and bought tickets for the VIP area. Free drinks and tapas were served, so we made sure to down three drinks before reaching the MONA port.

On the ferry to MONA.

View of MONA from the ferry.

We spent about two hours walking around the exhibits and another hour or so taking a winery and brewery tour.

Some unique exhibits included a pooping machine which took up a whole room and mimicked the process of digestion. It smells. Another was a small glass tank with beetles which created nests using gold flakes.




Trampoline at the MONA.

Came back, showered, and walked 20 minutes into the Salamanca historic district with a few bars and restaurants. Had a tasty dinner and went home for a good night's rest before our early start to Wineglass Bay.