As I thought about how I would approach recording our two weeks with the Vogts at Mount Martha, it occurred to me that time just flies when one is busy.....and we were. This fortnight went by in a blur of sightseeing, caravan repairs, a road trip to Warrnambool, two fishing days and (with a couple of exceptions) evenings spent enjoying fine food, assorted beverages and many, many laughs with our wonderful hosts. It seemed as though we had no sooner arrived than we were off again.
Where to start? I have decided to just muddle through with a few 'mixed offerings' presented in some semblance of chronological order. And at this point I must crave your indulgence for what I am afraid must be an unashamedly self-indulgent record of events.
Our first couple of days after arrival were spent settling in and catching up. At this stage John had been occupied with organising all his 'garage stuff ' after their recent arrival here in their new home.
On our arrival we had mutually agreed to share the evening cooking duties, and as you will see, these meals became something of a highlight of our visit. The Vogts began proceedings with a most magnificent boneless chicken, marinated in lemon and oregano and barbecued to a moist, golden perfection (the fowl was courtesy of Aldi....I have since become a man on a mission in this regard but have been told by 'her indoors' I cannot make this purchase until we have more fridge room). What a start! For some obscure reason we have no photographic record. This soon changed as you will see.
The weather for the first few week of our stay was marvellous. Warm, still and sunny autumn days with cool nights. Our hosts had long sung the praises of the Portsea Hotel as an ideal luncheon venue. Tuesday was the day.
Our drive south took us through Dromana, Rosebud and Sorrento which, amongst other things produced an abiding memory of the kilometre after kilometre of beachside caravan parks and camping grounds on the edge of Port Phillip Bay along this stretch....we had never seen anything like it. There are literally thousands of sites of all descriptions in the council owned parks in this area. Whilst things were relatively quiet at this time of the year, we could just imagine the chaos of the high summer holiday period.
Before repairing to the pub for lunch, we visited the far end of the Mornington Peninsula, Point Nepean, where history unfolded before us in the form of the old quarantine station (many thanks to 'discovermornington peninsula.com' for this aerial shot of the entire complex)
What a sad event brought this facility into being. The discovery of gold in Victoria naturally brought a rush of immigrants from all over the world eager to make their fortunes. Many reached Port Philip Bay in overcrowded ships which were not designed for passenger transport, with potentially disastrous results.
One such vessel was the 'Ticonderoga''. I'll let Wikipedia take up the tale.
"Ticonderoga was a 169 feet 4 masted clipper displacing 1,089 tons, launched in 1849 at
Williamsberg, New York. The Ticonderoga was infamous for its "fever ship" voyage in 1852 from Liverpool to Port Phillip carrying 795 passengers, arriving on the 22nd December 1852. It was a double-decker ship, overcrowded, and with more than its recommended load. Many passengers were small children, as the restrictions on the number of children per family had been lifted. Most came from the Highlands of Scotland but there were other families from Somerset on board.
The ship was not designed well for passenger carrying, sanitary provisions were totally inadequate, and the doctors were soon overwhelmed, and themselves caught typhus. The decks were never swabbed properly and there was no cleaning undertaken below decks; contemporary accounts mention the dreadful smell and the lack of sanitation. Bodies were bundled into mattresses in tens and thrown overboard during the voyage.
100 passengers died during the voyage of what was later determined to have been typhus. When the ship arrived, it was initially moored off Point Nepean and the headland was turned into a quarantine station, where many more passengers died and were buried, rather haphazardly in shallow graves. Later memorials have since been erected by the descendants of survivors.
After the press furor about conditions, double-decker ships were no longer used for emigrants, and the restrictions about the numbers of children allowed were reinstated."
The beautiful grounds on which the old disused quarantine buildings now stand certainly belie the tragic circumstances which was the genesis of this place.
Incoming quarantined passengers were housed in these large dormitory blocks
to the seaward side of which stood the huge chimney which carried off the smoke from the fires which heated
the boilers of the steam cleansing rooms.
A series of pipes carried the steam into enclosed chambers through which an internal rail line passed. Here the luggage of the quarantined arrivals was sanitised by the superheated steam
to emerge at the other end of the chamber (remarkably) dry and free of harmful nasties.
Other chemical based cleansing was also carried out but that did not provide half the spectacle of the steam cleaner!
The Quarantine Station maintained its original role until the facility was take over by the Australian Army in 1951, and in 1952 the Portsea Officer Cadet School came into existence.
This shot, courtesy of the OCS Alumni website, shows trainee officers on parade on the very lawns we were about to traverse. The OCS provided a much needed adjunct to the officer training conducted at the Army Military College, Duntroon (very necessary for many reason with which I'll not bore you here), but in 1985 it was closed, with all army officer training being transferred to Canberra. From that point on the facilities of OCS were taken over by the School of Army Health. All military activity ceased here in 1998.
For me the visit to this area did have a personal note to it. One of our very good RSL friends from Adelaide, the redoubtable Steve Larkins, now a retired Colonel, completed his officer training here many years ago as he embarked on what was to become a distinguished military career.
The grass of what was the OCS Parade Ground
is now given over to much more gentile pursuits. Could any sport be more 'gentile' than croquet? The Portsea Croquet Club members hammer their coloured balls through the bewildering array of hoops of their ground with the seas of Port Phillip Bay as a backdrop in one direction
and the current Information Centre buildings and the much newer Badcoe (named after Major Peter Badcoe, a Portsea officer graduate who was awarded a posthumous VC for gallantry in the Vietnam War) barracks building in the other.
Beyond the lawns of the old parade ground these grand buildings provide views across the bay from the heights
to the town of Queenscliff on the tip of the Bellarine Peninsula, the buildings of which can just be seen through the murk of this morning's haze.
And before we left this most interesting of places, we had another reminder of our first big adventure in our old Coromal....a sea crossing from Queenscliff to Sorrento, on a ferry just like this.
Well, after all this history and a good long ramble around the grounds of this fascinating place, it was time for lunch. The Portsea Hotel beckoned.
What a sad event brought this facility into being. The discovery of gold in Victoria naturally brought a rush of immigrants from all over the world eager to make their fortunes. Many reached Port Philip Bay in overcrowded ships which were not designed for passenger transport, with potentially disastrous results.
One such vessel was the 'Ticonderoga''. I'll let Wikipedia take up the tale.
"Ticonderoga was a 169 feet 4 masted clipper displacing 1,089 tons, launched in 1849 at
Williamsberg, New York. The Ticonderoga was infamous for its "fever ship" voyage in 1852 from Liverpool to Port Phillip carrying 795 passengers, arriving on the 22nd December 1852. It was a double-decker ship, overcrowded, and with more than its recommended load. Many passengers were small children, as the restrictions on the number of children per family had been lifted. Most came from the Highlands of Scotland but there were other families from Somerset on board.
The ship was not designed well for passenger carrying, sanitary provisions were totally inadequate, and the doctors were soon overwhelmed, and themselves caught typhus. The decks were never swabbed properly and there was no cleaning undertaken below decks; contemporary accounts mention the dreadful smell and the lack of sanitation. Bodies were bundled into mattresses in tens and thrown overboard during the voyage.
100 passengers died during the voyage of what was later determined to have been typhus. When the ship arrived, it was initially moored off Point Nepean and the headland was turned into a quarantine station, where many more passengers died and were buried, rather haphazardly in shallow graves. Later memorials have since been erected by the descendants of survivors.
After the press furor about conditions, double-decker ships were no longer used for emigrants, and the restrictions about the numbers of children allowed were reinstated."
The beautiful grounds on which the old disused quarantine buildings now stand certainly belie the tragic circumstances which was the genesis of this place.
Incoming quarantined passengers were housed in these large dormitory blocks
to the seaward side of which stood the huge chimney which carried off the smoke from the fires which heated
the boilers of the steam cleansing rooms.
A series of pipes carried the steam into enclosed chambers through which an internal rail line passed. Here the luggage of the quarantined arrivals was sanitised by the superheated steam
to emerge at the other end of the chamber (remarkably) dry and free of harmful nasties.
Other chemical based cleansing was also carried out but that did not provide half the spectacle of the steam cleaner!
The Quarantine Station maintained its original role until the facility was take over by the Australian Army in 1951, and in 1952 the Portsea Officer Cadet School came into existence.
This shot, courtesy of the OCS Alumni website, shows trainee officers on parade on the very lawns we were about to traverse. The OCS provided a much needed adjunct to the officer training conducted at the Army Military College, Duntroon (very necessary for many reason with which I'll not bore you here), but in 1985 it was closed, with all army officer training being transferred to Canberra. From that point on the facilities of OCS were taken over by the School of Army Health. All military activity ceased here in 1998.
For me the visit to this area did have a personal note to it. One of our very good RSL friends from Adelaide, the redoubtable Steve Larkins, now a retired Colonel, completed his officer training here many years ago as he embarked on what was to become a distinguished military career.
The grass of what was the OCS Parade Ground
is now given over to much more gentile pursuits. Could any sport be more 'gentile' than croquet? The Portsea Croquet Club members hammer their coloured balls through the bewildering array of hoops of their ground with the seas of Port Phillip Bay as a backdrop in one direction
and the current Information Centre buildings and the much newer Badcoe (named after Major Peter Badcoe, a Portsea officer graduate who was awarded a posthumous VC for gallantry in the Vietnam War) barracks building in the other.
Beyond the lawns of the old parade ground these grand buildings provide views across the bay from the heights
to the town of Queenscliff on the tip of the Bellarine Peninsula, the buildings of which can just be seen through the murk of this morning's haze.
And before we left this most interesting of places, we had another reminder of our first big adventure in our old Coromal....a sea crossing from Queenscliff to Sorrento, on a ferry just like this.
Well, after all this history and a good long ramble around the grounds of this fascinating place, it was time for lunch. The Portsea Hotel beckoned.
the back end of the pub is where it all happens for the lunch time crowds. A choice of table either at the benches of the beer garden
or in the upper level indoor dining area both reward those who visit with a wonderful view out over the Portsea Pier (they are never 'jetties' in this part of the world) and beyond.
We chose the informality of the beer garden...on such a lovely day why would this even be a matter of debate?.....where we were soon to confirm that the food on offer here more than adequately complemented the venue and the view (notwithstanding the need to fend off the hordes of maliciously marauding malevolent seagulls from time to time).
The day would have been incomplete without the obligatory post lunch stroll on the pier, a jaunt which took us past a couple of the beach front houses next to the pub.
"Damn it, Liz. The one we wanted has been sold!!" As you will see shortly, these are indeed 'rooms with a view'.....no 'sea glimpses' here. God only knows what the sale price was....other than one with a significant number of 0's in its tail!
soon had us meandering out along the pier
from which a glance shoreward showed just how well positioned the Portsea pub and adjacent homes are (excuse the 'daytrippers' posing in the foreground!)
From here we could also take in the small stretch of sand which is the Portsea beach, complete as it is with its ubiquitous, utterly Victorian and stunningly expensive row of beach huts.
The colours of this lot are quite bland by comparison to some we saw later at Mornington and elsewhere. But the prices are a constant.
Can you possibly believe that folk are prepared to shell out in the order of between $200,000 to $300,000 for one of these beachside boxes.....and they cannot even be used overnight. Local authority regulations prohibit sleeping in them. We were soon to learn that ownership of one of these oddities is a much vaunted social status symbol. Some people really do have too much money!
Can you possibly believe that folk are prepared to shell out in the order of between $200,000 to $300,000 for one of these beachside boxes.....and they cannot even be used overnight. Local authority regulations prohibit sleeping in them. We were soon to learn that ownership of one of these oddities is a much vaunted social status symbol. Some people really do have too much money!
But I was soon to have my attention diverted to matter much closer to my heart and bank balance....a fine King George whiting flapping on the end of this chap's rod. John and I were immediately inspired to make a return journey at some stage, but sadly this did not eventuate. We did make amends elsewhere as shall be seen.
What a wonderful day this had been, and I have to say that when we returned to Mount Martha we retired to neutral corners for the evening by mutual consent (the only time it happened!) Happy hour was abandoned and soup and toasted sandwiches were on the teatime menu....the most modest meal of our entire visit!
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