Today, CareFree and I made our way from Melbourne to Portland and finished our preparations for the Great South West Walk.
We were amazingly efficient this morning, getting up at 6:15 am, and checked out of our hotel before 7. A few minutes later, we were at the train station, with more than enough time to rush back to the hotel just in case we remembered we forgot something.
Our train, lightly populated, took us west from Melbourne, first through Geelong at the southwestern end of Port Phillip, and then further to Warrnambool.
Leaving Melbourne, the surrounding terrain was mostly flat, and filled with farms. We saw some horses, and plenty of cows and sheep. Carefree even saw the first kangaroos of the trip, though I was looking elsewhere at the time and didn’t see them.
Later, as the train neared Warrnambool, the cattle farms continued, though the land got gradually more hilly, and there were more trees.
In Warrnambool, we had a quick transfer to a bus for the rest of the journey to Portland. We were impressed with the luggage loader’s careful handling of our packs; other times we’d been on a bus, our packs were handled quite roughly.
The bus ride to Portland was fairly smooth as well, and and hour and a half (and one nap) later, we arrived in town.
Our first order of business was to check into our motel, the Victoria Lodge Motor Inn. Still a bit early (not yet 1 pm), we probably should have stopped for lunch first to give our room more of a chance to be ready, but after a few minutes of waiting, we were able to get checked in and into our room. (The front desk attendant may have set a record for fewest words uttered in checking someone in; I think they weren’t even going to tell us where we needed to go until I asked where our room was!)
Our room, intended for three people (a queen and a twin bed), is hilariously large — it feels more suited to be a long-term rental — but it’s quite comfy, even if it’s decorated with a questionable taste in color schemes.
After dropping off our packs, we returned to town and got lunch at the very busy Main Street Cafe. Afterwards we got food for the next six days, to take us to Nelson, from the Woolworths (formerly Countdown; they were in the midsts of a rebranding while I was on Te Araroa last year), and returned to the motel to repack our food, and relax.
In the evening, we took a short walk out to the ocean, which became a longer walk down Nuns Beach and to the end of a long breakwater which doubled as a fishing spot for locals. We were enticed by the Portland Corkscrew, an aptly-named corkscrew-shaped viewing platform, which was on the other side of the channel from the breakwater, making it inaccessible to us.
Returning to our motel, we had dinner (sandwiches, with cheese-and-bacon bread, which itself was pretty good).
We’re looking forward to “sleeping in” — a 7 am alarm rather than 6 am. We “only” have 20 km (12.5 miles) to go tomorrow, so we’re not in any rush.