I stay 5 days in Rye with Boaz and Justine and their 3 boys, just a short walk through the bush from Blairgowrie back-beach in the National Park. Then I joined up with them and two other families with school-age boys, for their annual mid-December camping holiday at Point Leo on Westernport Bay.
I came down with a 48-hour bug, with a heavy cold and ‘flue-like symptoms, and so was not up to par most of the time in Rye, but recovered enough to make the ride to Port Leo, with just a hacking cough left to bother me.
Point Leo is a great place. Nothing fancy, just a lot of unpowered camp sites strung out along a kilometer or so of coastline and a few toilets and amenities blocks, with a general store and kiosk not far away for ice creams and milkshakes. It’s a surf beach and a kiddies’ beach and a rocky point with rock pools and lots of open grassed spaces for kids’ games, and just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.
My plan was to go across to Tasmania on the ferry on the Monday, but then I discovered that the cost varies widely – basic fare-only price was $380 on the Monday, but only $94 on Wednesday.
So, I chose Wednesday, and stayed 2 nights in Melbourne. I had to change motels, which is a pain – packing up, then sitting around waiting for the new place to take me in – so couldn’t get much done, shopping-wise, which is probably a good thing.
The Baden Powell Hotel in East Melbourne, where I stayed the second night, is basic but not without charm. A tropical-strength downpour at dusk put paid to any going-out aspirations I may have had, but the pub-grub pizza was seriously good tucker in front of the TV watching the poms getting beaten at cricket, while my room’s air-conditioner did its best to cope with the excessive humidity whilst peeing all over the floor.
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#29 Rye to Point Leo and Melbourne |220 km|