The day did not start well (but cutting to the chase, ended very well):
- My computer seemed to be fixated on delivering a notification from McAfee. Had I been hacked? All seemed good when I started up in Portland so just a weirdness.
- Frances couldn't find her keys to the apartment when we got down to the basement. On checking a bag when we got into Portland it had got mixed up in the packing process.
- The freeway from the Westgate Bridge to Geelong (about 60km) was set to 60kph rather than 100 due to the Round the Bay bike ride. It was a mess because the ride had passed so it some places the 100 limit appeared to be back (or signs for both limits appeared together).
Whatever: we got to Geelong and headed towards Mortlake. The drive was OK although the road seemed in average condition with lots of potholes. A few small and unremarkable towns were traversed. We came across a few crops of canola, and a wind farm.
The only exciting scenery was Mount Elephant: I picked up the name from the pub in the nearby village! According to "Stories beneath our feet" it is a scoria (cinder) cone which rises 220m above the plain and the crater - it is/was a volcano - is 100m deep.
To the West of the mountain there were a lot of stone walls around paddocks. I suspect this is the scoria being used.
After Mortlake we started to dodge cross country. A pleasant surprise somewhere early in this was a Koala strolling across the road in front of me - I had to swerve to dodge it. Looking in the mirror it stood in the road for a few seconds: you could see the thought bubble "What the 😲 was that?" The roads were OK to start with but from about Woolsthorpe to Tyendarra (about 70km) they were very ordinary. Much of it was 3-ply (a lane of bitumen with a lane of potholed gravel on either side) which made matters a little interesting when crossing with a triple decker!
On getting to Portland we worshipped at the shrine of Aldi and got to our accommodation which seems excellent. We then went to the Visitors Centre where an excellent guide sorted us out. A bonus he gave us was the whereabouts (Crumpets Beach) of an Elephant Seal. Quite a few folk were turning up to look at it - you could drive within 20 metres of it, to which it paid no attention.
This image is zoomed - I am not getting that close to a beast that size!
In the background was the Lawrence Rocks. These are thought to be basaltic remnants of a caldera.
On getting to Point Danger - about 5km closer - the white 'frosting' became many thousands of Australasian Gannets.
In the 20th century the top of the Rocks was mined for guano which came close to destroying the colony of Gannets. However it was then protected and by now Wikipedia reports
"The group <of islands> has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA), because it supports over 10% of the world population of Australasian gannets, being used by over 6000 birds."
On our first visit to Point Danger we just peered through the fence at the colony.
Looking back the smelter is visible with some wind turbines.
We returned to Point Danger at 1725 and an excellent volunteer escorted us through the first gate to the fence around the Gannet Colony. A rainbow was nice, especially as the rain was moving away.
Some close ups.
Note the Silver Gull for size comparison.
Display behaviour, with the rocks in the background.
A portrait.
I did see a possible Cape Gannet, but didn't get a good look at it showing its gular stripe so no tick yet! That left Bird-a-Day as Singing Honeyeater.
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