Another gorgeous day of weather and another day of witnessing Nature's awesomeness!
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Loved our backyard here in Port Campbell.
View out of the back window of the MH - sitting look at it now - very calming!
Campbell Creek is home to a myriad of coastal wetland birds which have entertained us during our visit - fascinating to watch their daily routine in their environment!
The creek runs into the Harbour on the west side of the beach - when it is flowing! |
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| Fishing! - the resident Cormorant |
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| Successful fish - drying off now! |
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| Blue Crane on the left |
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| Hooded plovers |
On with the day! Shipwreck coast here we come!
The Twelve Apostles, Gibson's Steps, Gog and Magog and the Loch Ard Gorge advertised her mightiness - what a treacherous but awesomely beautiful section of coastline from Princetown to Port Campbell !
Interesting geology lessons today!
The iconic Twelve Apostles have been carved to their respective shapes by wind and sea erosion over the last 600 years. The Port Campbell National Park is on a limestone plain, formed 10-20 millions of years ago from accumulating layers of marine animal remains. As the sea retreated, as part of the ice age, the soft limestone was exposed to the wild waves of the Southern Ocean and the sculpting of the rock stacks we see today commenced.
And the waves are wild!!! - huge and thunderous!! - they mesmerise you - you can't stop watching them and being in awe of their power and beauty!
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| On the east doorstep of the Twelve Apostles |
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Gog and Magog at Sunset
Taken from the twelve Apostles Lookout |
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| Gog and Magog at Sunrise |
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| The steps! |
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From the beach you can really appreciate the towering stacks!
The Twelve Apostles Lookout on top of the cliff in the background, Magog stands in the sea -
but for how long? |
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The powerful crashing waves thunderously and constantly pound into these limestone stacks!
Awesome sight! |
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| Quite an experience ! |
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| Named after a tragic shipwreck that occurred here! |
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| The story of the tragedy............... |
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The entrance to the Gorge .
Muttonbird Island, where the Loch Ard was wrecked, is just to the right of the entrance |
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Loch Ard Gorge - looks beautiful but so dangerous!
This is where Tom and Eva, the only two survivors, were swept to, as well as a lot of the wreckage |
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The Loch Ard Gorge is a short distance west along the coastline from the Twelve Apostles
An amazing area to view - more of Mother Nature at her best! |
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| The other areas of interest at the Gorge |
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One of my favourite pics
The different strata is strikingly evident - each stratum is influenced by a different environmental
condition at the time of its deposition. The white and yellow stratum was formed though the deposition
of purely marine organisms. High silt concentrations in rivers and creeks produce the darker greyer layers. |
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Muttonbird Island
This is where the Loch Ard came to grief |
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| Great story! Remarkable birds! |
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These birds are special!
Also known as the Short-tailed Shearwater (we saw lots of them on Phillip Island as well).
These remarkable birds migrate about 30,000km every year, spending the summer in
the northern Pacific Ocean and returning the last week in September to
nest in various rookeries in Bass Strait |
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The entrance to Thunder Cave gorge
There was an arch at the entrance to this gorge but it has collapsed - no wonder! |
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Thunder Cave.
Understand how it got its name!- the sound is thunderous as the waves slam into the gorge and cave! |
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Broken Head
The huge waves slam into the cliffs - no wonder they erode!
The haze is the salt in the air - the whole area around Port Campbell is constantly hazy
from the amount of salt in the air created by the pounding , crashing waves |
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As you walk along the path on top of the cliff ( you can see the white markers) you get sprayed by these
enormous waves colliding with the cliffs.
The entrance to the Thunder Cave gorge is in the right foreground of the pic |
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| The huge waves roll in! Just amazing to stand and watch - goosebump material! :)........and more... |
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| How powerful are the waves to send the water and spray to the cliff tops! |
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| The Sherbrooke River |
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| Sherbrooke Beach No swimming here!! |
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| Such a contrast at the river estuary - the boiling foaming sea and the calm blue river |
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| Walking on the rock platform was quite an experience! |
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We enjoyed staying in the village of Port Campbell - nice beach and shops, great character and atmosphere! but dangerous entrance to the harbour - don't know how they even built the jetty where they did - such rough conditions!
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An important little building that housed invaluable equipment!
Its perched on the cliff beside the Jetty |
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| The Rocket Shed |
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The calm main beach is protected from the treacherous ocean swells on this unpredictable stretch of coastline.
Love the seagulls watching their domain! |
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| The beach and foreshore viewed from the Pier |
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| The Jetty - the sea pounds it like this all the time |
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The entrance to Port Campbell
The Napier, the vessel that came from Melbourne with the salvage equipment for the Lock Ard wreck, went down
itself off Sturgess Headland on the left - they managed to get the salvage equipment off before it sank. |
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