Portland & Surrounds

 Monday we left Port Fairy and headed for Portland for bit of a sight see on our way to our next destination, Mount Gambier.

Portland is a lovely industrial coastal town which has quite a lot to offer both in terms of history (the first settled town in Victoria), touristy stuff and nature wonders.

We visited the Botanic Gardens and the little old cottage in the grounds, and the dahlia display was magnificent!!!

I think this may be our new profile pic.

After the Botanic Gardens we headed towards Cape Nelson and on the way there were a few fantastic views

Enchanted Forest on
way to Cape Nelson

View from Cape Nelson back towards Portland

 

cottage at Cape Nelson Lighthouse

Cape Nelson Lighthouse

After the sights of Cape Nelson we decided to make our way directly to Mt. Gambier and come back to this region tomorrow and explore some more, there is just soooooo much to see!!

some sort of logging machinery on way to Mt. Gambier 

our camp at Mt. Gambier Showgrounds & me working on my washer woman arms :)

Tuesday we headed back towards Portland along the coast and stopped off at Nelson, Bridgewater Lakes and Cape Bridgewater...

Nelson Estuary Beach

 

Bridgewater Lakes, view from
Tarragal Limestone Caves

Tarragal Limestone Caves (tilt your head to the left)

Cape Bridgewater

Petrified Forest

us in front of said Petrified Forest

view from Blowhole lookout - to the left

& to the right

apparently you can sometimes see Blue Whales along these shores all year round, unfortunately we didn't see any, but I was certainly keenly searching in that vast expanse of sea.

one baren landscape

After Cape Bridgewater we headed into Portland and visited the Powerhouse Museum which has a collection of Vintage Cars and other motor vehicle memorabilia. It has been one of the best museums we have been to so far, the collection was immaculate and clearly visible to view and they even had a Holden motor bi-sected which you could "push a button" to make it work and see the insides of an engine working.

Making our way to Heywood, we stopped off at Treloar Roses north of Portland........ happy as the proverbial piggy I was!!! This company brings in new rose species from overseas and then trials them for Australian conditions over a 2 year period. If the rose ticks a variety of boxes, Treloar Roses then releases them to the market for the general beautification of our gardens :)

Treloar Roses - I was in seventh heaven

This place was fantastic. It's a working rose farm however it is open to the public (for free!!!) and you can walk around the entire place. At the front of the property they have landscaped the area with loads of roses and it certainly gives you inspiration about what you can do in your own garden. The rest of the property contains the trial roses and at this time of year it's just acres of blooms..... gorgeous!!

stunning

awesome

in amongst it baby!!

this one is called "Teasing Georgia" :)

Driving through Heywood we had to take this photo of the local hotel, it is certainly a "horsey" community.

Heywood Hotel & their clientele

Onto the town of Dartmoor and their "Avenue of Honour". In 1918, Atlantic Cedar seedlings were planted along the road to commemorate the 60 WWI servicemen and nurses from the Dartmoor district. Overtime some of the trees became unhealthy and the local residents came up with the idea to lop the trees and then have the stumps carved into sculptures. Here's some pics of just one of them

Dartmoor