I knew from past experience that John is particularly good with his hands and is also the proud possessor of many useful tools (which were now all arrayed in good order on the shed shelves). I had planned to use our time here to mount a concerted assault on a growing number of repair and refurbishment tasks related to our mobile hacienda with the thought the help would be close at hand in the event it all got too much for me. Some of these jobs had been on hold for many months.
First cab off the rank was our new tool box. I had decided at West Beach that two spare wheels were unnecessary and that the space occupied by one of them would be much better utilised to house a storage box.
So the unwanted wheel now sits in our Adelaide storage shed. I moved the remaining spare to one side which created the space on the rear bumper to accommodate the pictured box (which I had made to order in Adelaide but did not have time to fit)
Having carted this thing halfway across the country, all that now remained was to find someone locally who could make up a frame to hold it on the bumper bar. In the general scheme of steel fabrication, this was to be a very small job....who would be interested I wondered?
The Yellow Pages produced a winner, and I here and now happily sing the praises of the folk at AC Steel Engineering, Rosebud.
After an initial phone discussion with the redoubtable Andrew, we decided to make the 20 km journey south to confirm arrangements and ensure we could deliver the van without too many hassles. This was on Wednesday morning. To my amazement they could fit us in first thing Friday. Of course this did mean that we had to take down everything, hitch up and tow the van to Rosebud, and with a requested arrival time of 0730 hours this meant that we we made a bleary-eyed start to the day at just after 0500.
We dropped the van off at the appointed hour where one of the AC Steel proprietors, Chris, cast his eye over the requirements and pronounced that this would be a simple matter. "We should be finished in a couple of hours at the latest".
Well, we thought, that should give us time to take a quick look at the Peninsula from the heights of 'Arthur's Seat' and perhaps fit in a trip down to Finders on the other side of the peninsula.
Arthur's Seat is the most prominent land feature on the Mornington Peninsula. Rising just over 300 metres from the plain, below it offers spectacular views of Port Phillip Bay from The Rip to the city.....on a clear day that is.
Sadly for us, this was not one of them. The morning haze blurred the landscape below us as we gazed northwards over the shores of Rosebud and Dromana. The Melbourne skyline was but a distant dream this morning.
Similarly, looking south-west towards the tip of Point Nepean and the entrance to 'The Bay', the curve of the end of the peninsula did not stand out in stark relief.
But at least we had gained some feel for what is on offer up here, which extends to much more that the views. Restaurants, hotels, gardens and great walks are all to be found in the Arthur's Seat National Park. A new chairlift, which should provide stunning views to all who ride in it, is currently under construction.
Oh, yes, there is a 'seat'. Its origins are a little lost in historical obscurity, but for what ever reason it has been preserved so tourists can be pictured looking important!
Quite nearby, a small memorial records the arrival of others here on the heights in vasty different and tragic circumstances. During WW2, the crews of two military aircraft, one Australian, the other American, perished when their planes flew into the side of the mountain during periods of poor visibility.
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One of the features of Port Phillip Bay is the fact that huge mud flats near its entrance compel arriving and departing shipping to follow a quite circuitous route to the ports of Melbourne or Geelong, many miles from the entrance.
Before we descended from the heights we spotted this small (a relative term) P&O cruise ship, 'Pacific Eden' making its way majestically up the channel.
As you can see, at the point these incoming vessels turn to port to steam northwards, they are quite close to shore. If you peer very closely at this photo, you may spot the dot of white just below the lighter blue of the skyline towards the right of the shot. This is in fact a large freighter outbound from Geelong.
After this brief period of nautical nonsense, we made our way through the delightful leafy lanes of the peninsula ridge wine country
and out into grazing lands of the eastern side of the peninsula where the waters of Bass Strait suddenly appeared on our horizon. In no time we had reached the small, but obviously very exclusive little coastal town of Flinders.
Here I'll let 'Travel Victoria' take up the story in both words and picture.
Flinders is located close to the southern tip of the Mornington
Peninsula, fronting onto the calm waters of Western Port in the west and
offering a rugged coastline of cliffs and ocean beaches along its
southern frontage onto Bass Strait.
[It] is an appealing holiday destination due to its scenic
coastal location amongst rolling green hills and the fact that
commercial development seems to have forgotten this town, instead
preserving the area's natural beauty and scenic views. A number of
historical buildings exist within the town, complemented by several
antique shops, the Flinders Fine Art Gallery and the popular Flinders
Bakehouse Cafe.
Attractions along the coast include Bass Park which provides
spectacular views down to the Flinders Jetty and across Western Port, as
well as being home to a monument dedicated to George Bass and Matthew
Flinders who were the first explorers in the area.
where I was in the process of reading all about the telegraph cable station which was a real feature of early Flinders, when the phone rang.
The van was ready. The competent folk at AC Steel were as good as their word. So our visit to Flinders was cut short and we repaired post haste back to Rosebud via the Cape Schank road to find the took box now mounted in all its glory on the rear bumper.
"Thanks fellas...great job". And the cost? A very modest $150.
It is such a pleasure to deal with competent and obliging people. Not only was the box sturdily mounted, the frame is designed and constructed to allow me to remove it easily if and when we sell the van. I could not have been more pleased.....this project had been nagging away for weeks and now it was done!
Back to Secrets Way we went to re-establish ourselves at the Vogt caravan park. By the time we had set up again and re-connected all our hoses and leads, it was time to head out to the local shopping centre.
It was my turn to cook. A seafood night was planned. Our freezer was still graced with some fine fillets of garfish, piscatorial unfortunates which had met their doom off the Point Turton jetty some weeks previously. Quality was not a problem, but I was concerned about quantity. Let's bolster the finny offerings with some of their crustacean cousins. To my surprise and delight, SA king prawns were available from the local Woolies, rather than the usual QLD or overseas product. Just the ticket!
So later than afternoon, after a preparatory 'nanna nap', and happy hour aperitifs, Chef Pierre's galley kicked into action, with a tempting array of crumbed seafood the result.
Again we supped well into the late evening, and why not.? With a chilled Marlborough Sav Blanc filling (briefly but frequently) the wine glasses and a fine meal in front of us, we chatted and chuckled our way through yet another end of day, Chez Vogt
with Bob the Dog snoring contentedly in the background.
Today had been one of a lot of hard work and real achievement. More was to come before we moved on.
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