Orbost or bust (or Orbust?)

We decided that an outing to the next large town in Victoria, Orbost, 160km by car to the West.  We decided to explore a bit of coastline along the way.

In extracting that route from Google Maps I accidentally set the travel mode to bike, and got a slightly different route.

Interestingly the bike option also gives a profile which I have inserted.  Nothing too savage in there, although I am surprised that the high point (on the highway) was apparently 331 m near the turn off to Wingan Inlet.  (I have also explored the bike route from Cann River to Cape Conran and it looks quite interesting - about 60km one way with only one nasty uphill.  A car shuffle would seem to be indicated.)

In the event we followed the car route!  When we lived in Ottawa a friend said that Canada had two seasons: Winter and roadworks.  Australia is more efficient and gets by with only one season - it isn't Winter.  At least in most cases there was work happening and we didn't have to stop.

This stretch was interesting as we had to drive on the wet and slippery section while the old road was empty on the side.  I guess they have to park the excavators there.

Cape Conran had some lovely beaches.

Not many birds but the Oystercatchers enjoyed it.

Lots of mussels - surprisingly far above the water.  I must pay some attention to where the shells are lurking at Bastion Point.

We moved on to Marlo, where the Snowy River hits the sea.  Our birding was disturbed by a horde of bities.  Frances asked about this at Orbost and was told they had arisen because the mouth had been closed (and opened with a backhoe).  There seemed to be potential to revisit the area once cool has calmed the insects down.  Here is the outlet.

A nice War Memorial in Orbost!

I hope the words are visible on this!  The best bit is about luring the pigs to Bairnsdale (walking is 90km with some serious hills) by luring them with maize,

These days the flood plain seemed to be entirely dairy farming,

Most of the shops in the main drag were art deco-ish and looked a bit run down.  The PO was quite spiffy but apparently was a modern rebuild of the original which had got too run down to repair and had been demolished.

On the subject of shops I visited a bakery (near the War Memorial) for a lunchtime(ish) pie.  It was quite reasonable but not brilliant.  I ran it through the official testing regime and ended with a score of 5: possibly this is a tad harsh as it was well after most people would have had lunch so missing a point for temperature could be seen as over zealous.  Taste was good and definitely made on the remises.  Crust was somewhat below par.  At the time I gave it 6 so perhaps 5,5 is about right.

There is a brewery in the area which doesn't do retail sales.  However we got a sample of Sou-East Draught (4.8%) from Foodworks and found it to be a very pleasant drop.  As they sell in cans, and are stocked widely they seem to be a pretty professional outfit.  I shall explore their other offering through the Mallacoota pub.

We drove back the most direct route.

Shortly after getting home the sunset was available.