A wild and woolly start to my holiday

At The Rip - the beanie was essential

The crossing provided everything promised (threatened). It was rather a roller coaster of a ride (I recall a rollercoaster ride called Montezuma's Revenge, from decades ago.. ) and the surf was definitely up.

The lifeboat sheds at Queenscliff

From time to time during the night I'd sit up and look out my cabin window and watching the waves being very lumpy with white caps.

After a visit to Keiser in Geelong for my knee physio program, I proceeded to Queenscliff and wandered out to the point and admired the lifeboat shed and lots of white caps in a very stiff breeze.

Queenscliff church with Funeral Poles

I walked around Queenscliff as my itinerary said admire the historic buildings, which I did down the main Street, I didn't visit the art gallery because it's not open until 10:00. I did note that the historic buildings in Queenscliff include a number of churches, one of which had First Nations funeral poles on the lawn beside it, which I thought a nice blend of cultures.

I diverted to look at both lighthouses the black one and the white one and did think that while the very boring technology around the white one probably was better for navigating, it certainly didn't have the same aesthetics.

Then on to point Lonsdale and its lighthouse and the lookout over the rip and it was very much a case of 'hang on to your hat'. I was glad to have a beanie to pull on rather than my brim hat, which I'm pretty sure would have been miles away by the time I made a grab for it.

As I drove further, I noted a lot of small branches and leaves across the road. Some bigger branches and the occasional tree where also down;last night's winds obviously were damaging.

More Queenscliff Churches

I had planned to stop at Barwon Heads for coffee at a particularly notable coffee place which appeared to be completely closed and under major renovation. So I wandered the main Street to find an alternative and after rejecting the first two because I really didn't feel up to sharing tables with people with young children, I found somewhere quiet for a coffee. That revived me considerably after my 5:00 a.m. start to the day.

The black lighthouse at Queenscliff

A message from my Airbnb host advised that the place was minus power, which would provide a couple of minor inconveniences for accessing the place, but power was restored sooner than the utility providers suggested it would be.

On to Torquay, noting the Torquay airport with tigermoth world and thinking that even if they did have planes and pilots functional and available today, the wind would prevent them flying.

I had a couple of pauses to admire the coast, the sea and the beaches, with the wind very much buffeting the car as I sat looking at the views. At Bell Beach I scanned for Surfers. It is supposed to be very popular with Surfers and there appeared to be one brave soul but he or she was alone.

Another message from my Airbnb host advised that power had been restored and I asked if it was okay if I checked in early, given there was no way I was going to go snorkelling; even if the waves hadn't been as big as they were, the water colour was disgusting and I wouldn't have been able to see 2 inches in front of my face.

The white lighthouse at Queenscliff

As I travelled through to Anglesey I saw a sign for Bell's Beach so deciding that I had been wrong about Bell's Beach, I diverted down to look at this expansive area of surf beach.

My first choice of parking place was guarded by a pair of magpies and remembering that magpies on mainland Australia have attitude. I chose not to get out of the car at that point.

Onto Anglesea and following the directions to my Airbnb, I found the place with the driveway marked by white rocks, but also with two solar panels on the driveway. Suspecting that this should not be the case. I phoned my host who was away for the weekend to relay the unfortunate message that not only were there two on the driveway, there was another one on the nature strip and two of them are not in good condition. Which was unfortunate because they had apparently only recently been installed. While I was on the phone with him, he asked me to double-check that I could actually get into the garage which was access to my little apartment and in doing so I noticed there were two more panels off the roof and in front of a different part of the house. Clearly a results of last night's very damaging winds.

The Rip

I eventually got myself settled into my little apartment and decided to take myself for a short walk down by the river which was rather enjoyable, especially given that the wind had dropped to a stiff breeze from the raging gale that had been blowing most of the day.

The change in wind intensity made a great difference to the whitecaps - while the swell was still rolling in, there were not whitecaps as far as the eye could see!