Labour Day Weekend

8 – 10 March 2014

We talked about going away for Labour Day Weekend, but Astrid and Gizmo had only just arrived and were still adjusting to our new home in Australia. Anyway, that’s what I claimed when we hadn’t yet made plans and the long weekend had arrived.

So I quick did some research on things to do in Victoria with in driving distance of Melbourne. We came up with a 2 day trip from Visit Victoria trip planner. The main attractions on the list were the Healesville Sanctuary, Black Spur Drive and Ninety Mile Beach.  Day 1 was to be the Tall Trees & Vines Touring Route and Day 2 was to be a day trip with the dogs to Ninety Mile Beach.

Day 1: Tall Trees & Vines Touring Route

We meant to get an early start, but it was Saturday morning, so we slept in a bit instead.  First stop after hitting the road was the Healesville Sanctuary, which I’ve already told you about in The Zoos of Melbourne.  It’s quite a lovely drive out there, first through the suburbs and then into wine country.  We spoke of stopping at a vineyard a couple of times, but it was early, we were driving and Australia is quite strict on with regard to drinking and driving.

From Healesville, we headed down Black Spur Drive toward Marysville.  Along this windy road, we started to realize why they call it the Tall Trees & Vines Touring Route.  For those of you who’ve been along Needles Highway in the Black Hills, Black Spur Drive drives about like Needles: Slow & windy with big cliffs up one side and down the other.

Black Spur Drive

Black Spur Drive

Black Spur Drive

At the end of Black Spur Drive you come to a little town called Marysville, where we began looking for Victoria’s highest waterfall.  While the directions are quite vague in the touring route itinerary, it turns out Steavenson Falls are very well marked and easy to find.  This is probably the prettiest waterfall we’ve seen since our arrival in Australia.

Steavenson Falls

Heather & Ben at Steavenson Falls

As we were walking back towards the car, looking for a restroom, we noticed a path that looked like it headed toward the top of the waterfall.  Since we are in it to win it, we headed up the trail.  Besides, the waterfall is only 84 meters high – it can’t be that far, right?

Trail to top of Steavenson Falls

It turns out the “stair path” only looked like this for the first little while and then it degraded into a single lane intermediate hiking path.  By that point, we had to keep going.  The view of the Great Dividing Ranges at our resting points was spectacular.

Great Dividing Ranges

About half way up we ran into an Australian couple.  The guy said, “There are big snakes up there.  Be careful, they’re poisonous.”  Naturally from that point on, I was freaked out.  Snakes are pretty much the only thing worse than mice & spiders.  Fortunately, we didn’t see any snakes, but we did see this little guy.

red bug

Finally, the view from the top of Steavenson Falls.  We definitely stuck around and enjoyed this for a little while before heading back down.

Steavenson Falls

After the hike back down, I had to wash my feet in the bathroom sink before I could get back in the car.  I tried to save these sandals, but they were just too dirty.

dirty feet

From Steavenson Falls, we headed for Lady Talbot Forest Drive along the Taggerty River looking for the cascading falls, as recommended by the itinerary.  The view was amazing and ever changing.  First lush green…

Lady Talbot Drive

…and as we got higher, white trees that were clearly fire damaged.

Lady Talbot Drive

We never did find the cascading falls that Visit Victoria brags about. When we came across a tree fallen in the road, we began to realize that maybe somewhere we’d gone wrong.  Because we were just an hour before sunset and had no cell reception, it seemed like a very good time to turn around.  Because he’s smart, Ben had the foresight to turn on RunKeeper to utilize the GPS to track where we were driving.  When we got home he laid it over the top of GoogleMaps and determined that we had started off on the correct road, but when the pavement ended we should’ve stopped and hiked for the cascading falls.  When we continued along the gravel road, we were actually continuing along a fire road.  That explains why the road deteriorated so quickly!

Day 2: Ninety Mile Beach

We wanted to do something with our fur-babies on day 2, since they’d only been with us for 9 days.  After searching #90milebeach on instagram, I found many pictures of people with dogs and fires on Ninety Mile Beach.  So we packed 2 dogs and a picnic lunch into the car and hit the road.  At one point along the highway, we were allowed to drive 110 kph!  It seems like a silly thing to be excited about, but I drive 79 km to Geelong at 100 kph several days a week.  It is painful!

According to Visit Victoria’s blurb on Ninety Mile Beach we should be able to access the beach from either Loch Sport or Lakes Entrance.  Because Loch Sport is closer, we headed that way.  After 4 hours in the car, we arrived in Loch Sport only to find accessing Ninety Mile Beach impossible.  It turns out that the Loch Sport entrance to Ninety Mile Beach is actually at Golden Beach, which is 30 minutes away.  By this time, I was ready to wet my pants.

Loch Sport is not exactly what you think of when you think of the entrance to a famous beach.  Instead its very rundown, has no amenities and people who look at you like you don’t belong in their town.  I was definitely on the uncomfortable side….so we headed back toward Golden Beach to see what we could find.

Once we arrived in this mini-town we began following signs for Ninety Mile Beach – promising, right!  We ended up on shoreline drive and were certain that there was just a bristle filled dune between us and the beach.  Just outside of Golden Beach the campground began and went on for miles & miles.  Every time we thought there was going to be a pull off, it was more campground with huge NO DOGS signs.  We finally came upon a clearing that wasn’t campground and knew the dogs desperately needed a break from the car, so we stopped and marveled at the beauty of the dunes.

90 Mile Beach

As we climbed over the top of the dune, we quickly realized the drive and the wait were worth it!

90 Mile Beach

Astrid was pumped! (Just as we knew she would be)

Astrid at 90 Mile Beach

Gizmo was less fond of the sand touching him (as we suspected), but his FOMO forced him to keep up with Astrid.

Astrid & Giz at 90 Mile Beach

I was, of course, in heaven.  The beach is my favorite place and this one was pristine.  We could barely make out other people down the beach from us.  We could not hear them at all – it was like our own private beach.

90 Mile Beach

We will definitely go back and with much more time to bask in the beauty and roaring silence of this amazing place.

Just before sunset, we decided to climb back over the dune and head back to the city.  On our drive home, we were blessed with a beautiful sunset across the Gippslands.

Sunset over Gippslands

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