Day 8 – Beachport, sand, scenic drives and bogged to the axles

Life is looking up the weather today isn’t too bad at least its not raining and the wind is dying down. We decided a trip to Beachport was in order via Little Dip conservation park and 4 WD track that followed the coast. All started pretty good and it would be fair to say between Gary and I our 4WD experience was limited and we have no desire to really be hard core, just to get enough experience to allow us to stay safe.

Track into Little Dip

 The trip along the conservation reserve track was spectacular and tested us with rocks, sand, steep assents and descents and very narrow winding tracks. The scenery and places we stopped were fantastic and our confidence grew a little. We had gone maybe 25 kms when the track actually transversed the beach for quite a distance. Now two things we, in hind sight, would have been good to know, 1) sections of the track had been closed due to washaways and 2) the wild weather had put a LOT of soft drift sand up on the beach. 200 mtrs in Gary’s bogged to the bum in soft sand. With a lot of digging and lower tyre pressures (15psi) we got the Prado out but any attempts to go further were deemed not to be in our best interest.

Gaz bogged

Me bogged

 The girls by the way were having a ball, thought it was a great joke. Now we had another small problem we had to turn around. Gaz managed to get around ok on the edge of the soft sand I, however, made a tactical error (maybe 2) I executed the same turn and pulled up behind Gaz – on soft sand and promptly got bogged. A bit more digging and lower tyre pressure and we were on our way backtracking to Robe. From Robe we went out on the bitumen to Beachport then took the dirt around the back of Little Dip conservation area to Beachport. This again afforded us some great sites and was pretty easy. As we came back onto the black top we came across the Woakwine Cutting which is an incredible feat and was completed by 2 men to drain a swamp land for farming. The project started in May 1957 and took 3 yrs to complete.

Some of the sites along the coast

The length of the cutting is about a km and 28.34 mtrs deep at its deepest point. The cutting is 36 mtrs wide at the top and 3 mtrs wide at the bottom. They took 276,000 cubic mts of material out and used a new D7 dozer.

More sites along the coast

Woakline Cutting

Beachport

 From there its was on to Beachport which is a nice little town with a population of about 400. There is a marker at the entrance to the town commemorating the death of the first 2 Australians during World War 2. They died on the beach at Beachport trying to destroy a German mine which had washed up on the shore. A trip around the rest of the town and then back to Robe for dinner.   By the way I think Dave has omitted some fairly important information.  In Robe there is a coffee shop of the beaten track called Mahalia’s where they import beans and blend them we have been in for coffee 2 days in a row and will go back for the last time tomorrow!!