Walkerville

Last weekend, Doortje and I went to Walkerville, a village on Waratah Bay, west of Wilson's Promontory.  We stayed at "Spindrift Cottage", set in the bush up from the beach at Walkerville North.

The building high on the left is "Spindrift Cottage".  The steps on the right were our access to the beach, only a minute or so downhill, a bit longer going back!  The bush setting was beautiful, with lots of parrots and finches around us, and raindrops dripping off the melaleuca!

The cottage was cosy with all mod cons including a log fire fiendishly disguised as an electric heater - this view from the bedroom, with seacoast views out to the left (east).

On Friday afternoon, we settled in and enjoyed the surroundings.  This shot is looking north-east from the balcony between rain squalls (we followed the Victorian principle that if you let the weather prevent you from going somewhere you'll never go anywhere). 

On Saturday morning we had glorious autumn weather for two hours and made the most of it.  The tide was out and we walked to Walkerville South via the beach, not possible at high tide.  As you can just see above, we carried umbrellas! 

The lime kilns at Walkerville South were built in the 1870s and operated for fifty years.  Flinders Street Station was constructed using Walkerville lime.  Timber and limestone were fed in at the top to be burnt and lime raked out of the opening at the bottom.  There was no road access but a jetty to service transport by ship.

 Looking south-east from one of the lime-kilns, there are surfers in the middle ground and the hills of Wilson's Promontory in the rear.  The surfers had some ocean swell but none of the ocean chop, being sheltered in eastern Waratah Bay.

Going back to the cottage, we traversed the bush above the beach and checked out the "historic" cemetery, with graves associated with the lime-kiln's operations.  In two hours, we only had to raise umbrellas and take shelter once!

Proud of our trekking and very happy with the Victorian weather which enabled us to watch two videos over the weekend (more than in the last six months!)  "Fargo" and "Frida", if you're interested.

All in all, a great weekend, with lots of memories - 41st wedding anniversary and Mother's Day on Sunday (we got back to Frankston in time for a fantastic lunch at Dan and Mon's!)

More photos are at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob_james/sets/