This was published 13 years ago
View from the top
David Reyne tackles the George Bass Coastal Walk and is rewarded with whisky and pork belly not far from the trail.
Don't look down ... the craggy cliffs at Kilcunda, where the seven-kilometre walk ends.
The English would call it a pea-souper. It's thick, moist and grey, the colour of English pea soup but, despite the heavy fug, we manage to find the beginning of the George Bass Coastal Walk. The ominous, dark presence of Cape Woolamai looms to our right, reaching into the fog-bound Bass Strait like a forearm.
The haze settles like a shroud but it is not to be the only impediment as we walk. A sign rattles off a litany of perils: ''Dangerous currents, unexpected large waves, slippery rocks, submerged objects, unstable cliffs.''
A little further on, another sign offers an afterthought clearly designed to deter any gay abandon: ''Danger, lives have been lost,'' it reads.
We step warily forward, the dual threats of fog and horror our menacing companions.
The first glimpse of ocean occurs in the form of an inky expanse, way below. The mist mysteriously splits as we round a corner, wrenched apart by a massive, angular, pink house sitting on the cliff top. It is a structure that seems to purposely defy its breathtaking surrounds. We press on, baffled.
This walk is named after the indefatigable maritime explorer, George Bass, a man hardly known for walking. In 1797 he set sail from Sydney Cove and encountered this coastline while proving that a stretch of water did separate the mainland from Tasmania. It was a hell of a point to make, given he did it in an open boat only 8.7 metres long. We try to imagine just what the local Boonwurrung people would've thought.
The scrub here is such that if you push against it, it has no hesitation in pushing back. There are bushes that resemble large lavatory brushes and so sturdy, they would be handy if put to that use.
The walk climbs out of stretches of scrub and into wide, rolling fields of grass. The uncharacteristically calm Bass Strait licks at inaccessible craggy bays below. Headlands stand defiant, their features etched by thousands of years of ocean brutality and windswept surgery. As we dip into the many lush, serene valleys, it's easy to forget one of the world's gnarliest oceans is mere metres away.
The occasional steep section inevitably raises the sweat but just as the joy risks being nudged aside by effort, there's a stretch of flat and easy.
The track is a relatively comfortable seven kilometres and shouldn't take more than two-and-a-half hours. But since I'm walking with my wife, who is of Austrian and Latvian extraction, it's hardly leisurely. Her determination is such that a walk is something to be conquered … as quickly as possible.
We leave the shade of a tea-tree and step onto a deserted bay. There's a wide stretch of sand, rippled dunes thatched with untouched grasses, driftwood and a precipitous cliff line. A set of dimpled tracks suggest an early morning constitutional was taken by a kangaroo - and his canine mate - and just as we think the experience couldn't possibly be more quintessentially Australian, we amble down the back of a dune and find a brackish billabong.
About five kilometres from the start, the track becomes a long, flat trail that winds across the top of the cliffs through thick and luxuriant fields of green. There's something very Sound Of Music about it all.
As we round a bend, the coastline stretches before us, all the way east to Cape Paterson. The beaches glow as the last of the haze rises.
The track snakes through a grove of tea-tree and banksia. A steam-driven winch from the long-abandoned Kilcunda Coal Mine sits among them, rusted and forlorn.
Our walk ends at the weather-beaten hamlet of Kilcunda, which clings to the Bass Highway.
It is a town for which the word, hamlet, seems most appropriate but for which the name, Kilcunda seems too brutal. The locals have tried to soften its menace by referring to it as Killy. I'm not sure it helps.
We check into a villa at the Kilcunda Oceanview Holiday Retreat. I'd normally think of a villa as a stately country home of vast proportions. The Kilcunda version is somewhat more austere. It is clean, modern and simple and the villa view is astounding. We are so close to the ocean that the surfers slotting themselves into the hollow wave out front run the risk of being spat from the barrel and into my cup of tea.
The villa shares front-row seats with a number of others on a prime chunk of coastal real estate. Immediately behind them, a clutch of ageing caravans show off their modernisations. Some are fringed with decks. Some require permanent annexes to hold them up.
Just out of town, heading east, Bourne Creek is barely managing a lacklustre attempt at trickling to the sea. An enormous span of disused railway sits upon a magnificent edifice of massive timbers that soar above the creek to frame the ocean view beyond. This is Kilcunda's historic trestle bridge, originally built for locomotives to deliver coal from the area to NSW.
Six kilometres further along Bass Highway, we turn left. A row of poplars defines what appears to be the main street of Archies Creek
An occasional country-style cottage is pinched between dwellings of yellow brick. There are a couple of old factories, a timber plant and the Royal Mail Hotel. Archies on the Creek is gushing luxury. There's an immense wine cellar, an enticing whisky and beer bar, a sports-style bar and plush and gleaming conference and wedding facilities. A row of chandeliers leads past a grand piano, into the opulent restaurant. I'm not sure how many walkers are likely to swap the steaming sneakers for a pair of loafers and celebrate their effort with lunch here but they should.
My wife orders the scallops. Quelle surprise! As if conquering the morning's walk in record time wasn't enough, she's gone for the zero-fat option. I, on the other hand, plump for the full hog; pork belly, apple and braised mushrooms and a grilled tenderloin of the local wagyu.
We head back to our ocean-side villa. The descending sun forces the faded sheen of the assembled caravans to glisten as an afternoon breeze tickles the crest of the breaking waves.
It seems an age since we took our first steps into the clifftop gloom of the George Bass Coastal Walk but if every day here was to offer the variety of beauty and wonder we've just experienced, we might just back a van up, discard the wheels and move in permanently.
David Reyne travelled courtesy of Tourism Victoria and Destination Gippsland.
FAST FACTS
The George Bass Coastal Walk is 120 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, between San Remo and Kilcunda. The start of the walk can be found at the southern end of Punchbowl Road, which runs off the Phillip Island Tourist Road. Alternatively, walkers can begin at the other end, which can be found at Bass Highway in Kilcunda. The walk is about seven kilometres long and will take a person of average fitness about 2½ hours to complete. See inspiringgippslandwalks.com.au.
The Kilcunda Oceanview Holiday Retreat is right on the beach at 3560 Bass Highway, Kilcunda. Oceanfront villas cost from $155 a night.
Phone 5678 7260, see kilcundaoceanview.com.au.
Archie's on the Creek is at 81 Archies Creek Road, Archies Creek. Entrees from $17, mains from $32. Phone 5678 7787, see archiesonthecreek.com.au.
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