History and beauty around Portland in Victoria, Australia

Having just driven the Great Ocean Road, I didn’t think that any other piece of coastline would impress me, however the beauty only continued as we headed west through Portland.

The small city of Portland was actually the very first settlement to be established in Victoria, Australia, around one year before Melbourne was founded. Located in the south west of the state, Portland Bay is a natural harbour that provided shelter to the whalers and fishermen that navigated Bass Strait in those days, and it was these people that established the town. These days Portland is a thriving little city with an important port and Aluminium smelter.

Portland Harbour

A shell sculpture on the foreshore in Portland

Old buildings in Portland

From here we headed out onto the peninsula to explore the beautiful coastline of the area, taking the road out to Cape Bridgewater, where there is a small village with a truly spectacular beach setting. This was the perfect spot to stop for a cuppa while looking out at the ocean.

Bridgewater Bay – Perfect spot for a cuppa

Bridgewater Bay panorama

Cape Bridgewater itself has some very interesting attractions, including a huge fur seal colony right on the tip of the cape. You can take boat tours from Portland to get up close to the colony, or you can walk the 5km trail from the car park at Cape Bridgewater. As you drive to the car park you will pass by the huge wind farm that sits up on top of the peninsula, the huge wind turbines creating energy from the strong winds that lash at the coast.

The wind farm at Cape Bridgewater

We visited the interesting rock formations known as “The Petrified Forest”, which were falsely named due to the fact that they look like petrified tree trunks. The tube like rock formations are actually a result of water eroded limestone that has been hollowed out over millions of years.

The “Petrified Forest”

We also took a walk to a blowhole near here, but the sea just wasn’t rough enough on this particular day. Still, the coastline is certainly spectacular.

The walkway to the blowhole on Cape Bridgewater

Rough coastline at Cape Bridgewater

This was our last stop in Victoria, and from here we drove on into South Australia for the first time, making camp right in the small town of Tantanoola, an old railroad town that has dwindled since the railway’s closure. We camped across the road from the local pub -“The Tantanoola Tiger Hotel”. The pub is named after the “Tantanoola Tiger”, an Assyrian Wolf that was mistaken for a tiger in the late 1800’s and blamed for killing a lot of livestock in the area. The wolf is still on display inside the pub. How an Assyrian Wolf came to be in Australia, I have no idea!

The old railroad station in Tantanoola

The Tantanoola Tiger Hotel