2000/02 Australia trip - Ben Boyd |
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Monday February 14th
We’d have loved to stay longer, but that’s true of almost everywhere we went. We drove up Mount Oberon again, this time in daylight.
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Mount Oberon (0.41) |
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The hike to the summit was tempting but we couldn’t really spare the time, so we drove out of the park and then east along the Gippsland Highway. We stopped in the nice little town of Sale for lunch and some essentials like film and knitting needles, and then drove all afternoon and evening trying to get into New South Wales by dark.
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Gippsland (8.35) |  |
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We hit the coastline at one point, Lakes Entrance, but it didn’t look too interesting. We pulled off the road at Nowa Nowa for tea, and met up with a kookaburra and a tree full of cormorants. Later we crossed the famous Snowy River, and drove through miles of empty country, beautiful forests, but no obvious way to get in there.
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Road to Eden (1.20) |
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We’d intended camping in Ben Boyd park, but we missed the entrance, and ended up in the town of Eden. As it was dark we opted for the first campground in town, which turned out to be pretty and full of bird life. We were surrounded by bell birds, like being in the middle of a wind chime.
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Eden (5.14) |  |
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Tuesday February 15th
We woke to a serenade of bell birds, parrots, and lorikeets. Our nearest neighbours were a couple from Vancouver on a 3-month holiday. They’d opted to buy a camper instead of renting, with the intention of selling it before they left. However, we had to jump start it for them before we left.
We found Ben Boyd Park in daylight OK, and walked to the Pinnacles. These are heavily eroded layers of bright red, white, and yellow rock, flanked by five miles of deserted sandy beach. We climbed down to the beach, and Sandie went collecting shells while I crawled through the undergrowth 
of a dried-up river bed trying to get to the Pinnacles. Needless to say, later I found there was a much easier way to get there, but it was worth the crawl, really vivid colours.
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Ben Boyd (19.49) |  |
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Of course, it was also amazingly hot with all that light reflected off the white rocks. Luckily there was plenty of beach close by for a cooling swim. This area is known as the Sapphire Coast, because of the colour of the water. Most people think it’s the deep blue colour but I think the name comes from the colour of the shallow water. It’s absolutely clear, but with a faint blue-green tint, just like an uncut sapphire.
We had the area to ourselves, but ran out of drinking water very quickly, so we walked back and had morning tea with the parrots under the gums at Haycock Point. There were a few more people there, but still spread over miles of beach.