The coastline of Australia is amazingly diverse and we were able to explore stretches of it along the Great Ocean Road, Kangaroo Island and on mostly the Island of Tasmania.
The Great Ocean Road offers spectacular stacks and caves as the wind blows consistently from the Antarctic across the Southern Ocean onto the south west facing coastline. It is a very cold wind so you need to carry plenty of layers if you want to stand and admire the different views for very long.
The north and east coasts of Tasmania are both rocky and sandy with red lichen prevalent on many of the rocks. It is this lichen which gives the Bay of Fires it's name but the lichen can be found in many other places.
South of the Bay of Fires is Bicheno which is a major tourist town. Whilst we were visiting there was a huge wind storm which made even standing up a problem but we persevered as the scenery was so spectacular, especially at the Bicheno Blowhole which gave us a great performance making full use of the big waves.
Melbourne has a promenade stretching from the city to beyond St Kilda where we were staying. It was always full of runners, cyclists and skate boarders which meant you had to keep alert when walking along the promenade.
We accidentally discovered the town of Wynyard and the beach at Fossil Bluff on our way to Stanley. The significant features to be viewed at Fossil Bluff are a section of Tertiary marine sedimentary rocks containing thousands of well preserved shell fossils exposed in the cliff face and on the rocky foreshore. The detail in the fossils is incredible and apparently they are identical to the resident shells found on the beach today.
The area around Swansea was more gentle although we arrived at the back end of the Bicheno wind storm. The area always had stupendous clouds and sunsets making photography great fun.
There are so few people around that it is possible to soak up all the atmosphere and really relish watching the sea washing around the rocks and beaches. Most of the time we experienced very strong winds and rain which made travelling about hard work but the stormy conditions certainly make my photographs more dramatic. It was only when we got to the east coast of Tasmania that the sun came out consistently and we were able to sit on the sand and relax.
Tasmania is wonderful and I would love to return there.
