Thirty kilometers of dirt road along farmland, with barely any view of the ocean, brought us to Port Victoria.
It was a beautiful morning out, sunny with barely any clouds, and already noticeably warmer than yesterday. With a long roadwalk ahead of us, and inland away from the ocean breeze, it didn’t seem like it’s was going to be very comfortable.
Overnight, CareFree discovered that she did not like the new version of her inflatable sleeping pad, which is squeakier and slipperier than the old version. (Her old pad sprung a leak on the East Coast Trail earlier this year.)
Our departure was also delayed about an hour because CareFree got some urgent work news that requires her to get off-trail to deal with. She dealt with the initial planning of that before we started this morning, and then we left the campground, heading south along the adjacent dirt road.
The dirt road from the campground immediately began following the boundary of a farm, giving us fields of some kind of grain to our left, and sand dunes to our right. There was hardly any wind to speak of.
It didn’t take long before we saw what at first we thought were snake tracks cris-crossing the road. After a bit, we remembered from our hikes earlier this year that it was more likely to be wallaby tracks. So we were hopeful we might see wallabies this morning. (We didn’t actually see any, though.)
After a few kilometers, at a bend in the road where a strong cool breeze blew from the farmland and through a nice shaded area next to the road, we briefly paused. It didn’t seem like there’d be many opportunities for shade today.
We passed a few bobtail lizards, slow-moving round skinks that rather looked like logs at first glance, especially when under cover of brush. Later in the day, we passed more, including several that had been flattened by cars.
We took a longer break at the Balgowan North Shelter, with a nice view of the ocean and a strong breeze blowing. After a while under its shade, it became almost cold. Once we continued again and stepped out into the sunlight, the temperature quite quickly jumped back up. After a somewhat moderate day yesterday, the afternoon temperature was forecast for 33°C (91°F), really rather quite hot to be hiking a long day with no shade.
There’ve been occasional informational signs about the local flora fauna, but also at the shelter was a couple of signs with (very) short stories by an aboriginal storyteller about the people who used to live here before Europeans colonized Australia. It felt awfully superficial, but it was better than the meager displays on the Great South West Walk and Great Ocean Walk. (The shelter we took a break at later in the day also had a longer story that was more interesting.)
A short walk brought us into Balgowan. A nice trail-themed bench sat at the end of the first section of trail from Moonta Bay, and the start of the next to Port Victoria. Balgowan seemed only to consist of a tiny car camping area, a bunch of houses, and a shuttered kiosk, dashing our hopes for getting ice cream or a cold soda. Cell service was basically worthless, however there was a real, working phone booth from Telstra, one of Australia’s mobile phone providers, which we used to get a reservation for the Gulfhaven Caravan Park in Port Victoria this evening.
Leaving Balgowan, we followed the road out of town, joining a cycle track between farmland and conservation land. There was, very generously, a bench to sit on roughly every two kilometers, and we took advantage of many of those benches, especially later in the day as it got hotter and we got more tired. (The benches were simple seats, with no backrest or the styling of the one we saw in town, but were still way better than sitting on the ground.)
We passed a few people in trucks, and saw an abandoned boat on a dirt road that veered off from the trail. A degenerating wooden truss platform provided the only shade we got in the afternoon, and we were happy to sit under it, even after we’d resumed from a break not fifteen minutes earlier.
We took another long break at Point Pierce Shelter, making use of its water tank to drink some cooler water than we were carrying, and waited out a little bit of the late afternoon heat.
At the Balgowan Shelter, a sign made note that snails introduced from the Mediterranean region were present, and a pest for crops. Later, as we neared Port Victoria, we passed through an area replete with snails, which had taken to climbing up onto the trail signs.
Arriving on the outskirts of Port Victoria, the trail joined one of the town’s roads, and once again came close enough to the coast for us to see the ocean. Tired, we quickly made our way to the Gulfhaven Caravan Park, set up our tent, and got showers, which really helped rejuvenate us after the long, hot day.
We cooked dinner in the camp kitchen, and CareFree spent much of the evening trying to figure out how to get back to Adelaide to deal with her work thing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there’s much in the way of good choices, but assuming we get to Point Turton on Saturday like we plan, then Sunday morning she should be able to hitch to a nearby town and take a bus from there. There’s a kiosk in Port Victoria that we’ll pass on our way out tomorrow, though, so hopefully they’ll have a better idea.
After two thirty-kilometer days, though, we’re sore and our feet hurt. So thankfully, tomorrow’s going to be a shorter day, to the caravan park in Port Rickaby.