3 April 2014 - Lance Moon Park, Yanakie, South Gippsland, Victoria

We left our excellent park at San Remo this morning and headed east to Wonthaggi, where they used to mine coal. In fact the coal was discovered here in 1910 and the State operated the mine until 1968. Given that it closed about forty four years ago, one might think Wonthaggi would be very much a has-been town. Not so. It is a thriving rural service town with all services, modern in as much as rural towns can be and right now two big constructions are going up; a new Bunnings and a shopping centre to house a bigger and better Coles and a few specialties shops. We wandered around Target Country and Big W in the hope of finding jackets and jerseys to suit us and our pockets, but found nothing. The bakery in Woolworths (called Safeway here) was more successful and we came away with a bag of goodies, none of which we actually needed.

We had parked at the Information Centre but found it closed. The entire staff, quite a number given the size of the town, were all standing around outside, happy to answer our questions but unable to provide us with use of their conveniences or hard copy information. There had been a break-in and they were waiting for forensics to come and do their bit before any evidence was wiped away. When we returned from our walk about the town, they were just opening up and an elderly volunteer went out of his way to offer us an abundance of advice. I am not quite sure how they tell volunteers they are past it without hurting their feelings. When the heart is willing and the mind is failing; what then?

As we had approached Wonthaggi, we had made a detour to the wind farm and construction site for the Desalination Plant. This was to be finished this year, but is running late as these projects so often are. Interestingly just last night on television there had been a heated debate between past and present premiers as to the wisdom of this project. It was started in a time of great drought and now costing so much even in a cotton wool stage, the tax payers are crying foul. Perhaps they will appreciate the apparent waste of money when the next seven years of drought roll around.

In town we called in to the PR office for the project and had just seen the “Shut on Tuesdays” sign when a woman opened the door for us to ask what we wanted. Not only was she happy to explain the project to us, but gave us a great wallet of excellent information about it all. From this we learned:

• It is the largest desalination plant in Australia.
• It is one of the largest reverse osmosis plants being developed in the world.
• The cost of construction is $35 billion.
• This Victorian Desalination Project is a PPP (Public Private Partnership), such as muted in New Zealand to undertake massive infrastructure projects that the tax payers are not happy to shell out for.
• It will be able to supply one third of Melbourne’s water.
• It will be able to supply 150 billion litres of water per annum to Melbourne, Geelong, South Gippsland and the Westernport towns.
• The 225 hectare area of the project will eventually appear as glorious parklands with the nuts and bolts of the business well camoflaged under roofs of turf and greenery. 3.5 million new plants are being planted here including 150,000 trees.

From Wonthaggi, we took the coastal route around past Cape Paterson which did not impress us much. The seaside village sits atop cliffs, behind screens of high coastal scrub. It is true that we did not get out of the vehicle to explore further, however did enjoy the views from the clifftop as we continued east along to Inverloch. This township is delightful, full of smart houses and was busy with holiday makers. It sits at the mouth of Anderson Inlet, a stretch of water which rushes in and out to sea twice a day at a horrendous rate. I for one would not want the grandchildren swimming here or my husband going sailing in the trailer sailer he so covets. We had lunch here, parked beside the beach, spent half an hour walking about in the sun, and then set off once more heading east, across further dairy farm lands.

Wilson’s Prom was our ultimate destination, the land mass that runs south as far as any on the mainland of Australia. As we approached the prom, the mountains rose up from the flat land all about like great islands offshore. We had seen that there was a rest area at Yanakie, a tiny rural settlement serving the immediate agricultural area and gateway to the Prom, and on arriving found it would meet our needs for the night. There is an iron maiden for our donation and toilets beside the playground should we feel the urge to use either. The road is already quiet and will no doubt be absolutely so once night comes. Tomorrow we shall continue on to Wilsons Promontary National Park and find out why everyone said that we simply must go there.