Loch Ard Bay from the air, April 2002: Muttonbird Island in the front-left, Loch Ard Gorge and beach in centre-back and the recently collapsed Island Archway on the right. (Photo by 'Roffy')

Way back in February 2006 I visited Loch Ard Gorge for the first time. The water was calm and clear. Ridiculously calm and clear. I departed from the Great Ocean Road with two plans forming in my mind. First, to get a kayak that would be easy to carry down the steep coastal paths and launch in order to travel under those beautiful arches and second, to dive on the wreck of the Loch Ard.

Exceptional calm in Loch Ard Gorge (February 2006)

In the following months I sourced a charter boat that takes divers to the incredible Arches site as well as to the Loch Ard, when weather permits. Also, on a trip to Canada in March, I investigated inflatable kayaks and later in the year I received the Innova (Gumotex) Helios II. Then we waited and waited and waited for a string of northerlies that would bring the calm conditions that I’d encountered on my first visit…

Eventually, in March 2008 we took a trip down to Port Campbell. The water was calm, but not like before. Even so, we launched from Loch Ard beach and paddled out the choppy entrance and through the archway in Muttonbird Island. Pretty soon we got uncomfortable in the swell and surge and thought we should get back through the entrance before things got much worse.

Kayaking through the arch in Muttonbird Island (March 2008)

I’ve been hoping ever since that we’d be able to go back and travel through the rest of the arches and explore the coastline. But it’s changing so fast. In April I took my parents along the coast and saw how huge the waves can really get. After seeing the pounding waves and how much some of the rocks had eroded, compared to my photos from a few years before, it was not too much of a surprise to learn last week that one of the archways had collapsed.

Island Archway, March 2008

Island Archway, May 2009

Island 'Archway' June 2009 (Photo by Glen Hunter)

We had a great weekend at Portland, about a four hour drive west of Melbs. We primarily went to dive, specifically to see leafy sea dragons as we only get weedy sea dragons this far east. We didn’t see any but we saw so many other cool and unexpected animals!

Staff at the Portland dive shop were friendly and directed us to several dive sites. The first dive was along the Lee breakwater. It is a short clamber on the rocks to get in (and out) of the water, and fishing line and hooks (both active and old snagged ones) are a hazard. I was snagged while getting into the water and twice along the dive; once the hook actually caught my fin and the fisherman was yanking hard probably hoping for a large snapper. Having got in without a dive knife, I was lucky enough to find one on the bottom and was able to use it to free myself.

Visibility was pretty poor after the north winds last week that left thousands across the state without power. Still, we saw lots of fish, nudibranchs, plenty of rock lobster and best of all a giant cuttlefish that developed quite a crush on my very bright fins. It hung around changing colour and texture and followed us for quite some time.

Another Easter in a share house with our friends, Rod and Vanessa.

We had hoped to surf on Friday, but the swell was huge and so we all took a walk around Cape Woolamai. Later we attempted a snorkel but the swell had stirred the bottom and I couldn’t even see my own feet! The bad ‘vis’ also put paid to the night dive that Rod and Vanessa had hoped to do. Bad for them but good for us as, instead, Vanessa cooked up a huge feast of Blue Grenadier.

Saturday we paddled a little, snorkeled and cooked a Greek feast of αρνί κλέφτικο, Γεμιστά, χαλλούμι and salads. Sunday, we got up early to catch the 8am low tide to dive at Smith’s beach. We had a great dive, the highlight of which was four Port Jackson sharks sleeping on the bottom.

After cleaning the abalone we had collected that morning we returned to Smith’s beach to play in the surf for several hours until exhausted :) Monday we all rose early again and drove to Inverloch for two dives with S.E.A.L dive services. The first was not so spectacular (almost all the divers missed the main wall) but the second had a good, low wall and plenty of large crays (unfortunately just out of reach; though several were caught by others). Also unfortunately the swell had picked up and a very, very strong surge at the bottom made photos impossible. We stopped at a few beaches close to Inverloch but plagues of biting flies drove us away quite quickly. Tuesday, Ross and I snorkeled and played in the surf until it was time to pack up all our toys and come home.

We left Melbourne on the Spirit of Tasmania and sailed overnight to Devonport, Tasmania. Arriving, tired but not (too) sick we picked up the groceries that customs disallows and headed to Cradle Mountain. Starting from Lake Dove we climbed Marion’s Peak and approached Cradle Mountain via the Overland Track. Spending only a shirt time at the very windy summit we returned via the Wombat Pools.

That night we camped at the Cosy Cabins Campground and in the morning headed south over the Highland Lakes Highway all the way to the Tasman Peninsula in the south-east. We checked in with the EagleHawk Dive Centre and went to explore. The next two days were spent doing four dives, two from Port Arthur (including one under the cliff of the Island used for juvenile prisoners), one under the famous Totem Pole and one in the giant kelp forests of Fortescue Bay.

We were lucky enough to have a friend in Hobart to visit en route to our walking point in the South West. After a feed, warm bed and rest we headed to the South West to make an assault on Mount Anne, the highest peak in the area. We climbed over 1km vertical from the trail head, passing over Mount Eliza and all the way to shelf camp for spectacular views of Mount Anne and Lot. With a diversion to the Mount Anne saddle in the morning, and bad weather approaching we returned and drove back through Hobart, stooping briefly at Russell Falls, to visit another old friend.

The last stop was Freycinet National Park. We found wonderful camping on the Friendly beaches and the next day paddled south down the west coast of the peninsula from Coles’s Bay to Hazard’s Beach. The last day we walked up to the classic WineglassBay lookout in amazing sunshine and along Wineglass Bay beach in a heavy downpour. Returning via the circuit track it was time to drive to Devonport for a motel-stop to catch the day sailing back to Melbourne.

She now lies in 18m of water and is a beautiful dive. Unfortunately, the times that she is accessible are limited. She lies in the shipping channel, an area of great current execpt for short 30 minute windows where the tides change and the water is ‘slack’. Secondly, access to the channel is limited by incoming and outgoing ships. Divers are at the mercy of Melbourne Port Authority who only give a definite ‘all clear’ 1 hour in advance. This is was not our first attempt at this wreck; previously shipping had prevented us and we were forced elsewhere. Saturday, however, we were lucky and had a beautiful dive.

We were diving at Rye …

… (which we had meant to do as a night dive the previous evening but TORRENTIAL rain made setting up equipment a less fun prospect, not to mention the stormwater drains gushing out bacteria and sediments. There was so much rain our usual campside was under 15cm of water that was having hard time sinking into the parched, sandy, hydrophobic soils. Instead we took refuge in the house and drank tea and ate cookies! But, in this town, you don’t complain about rain ;) especially not when you planted 40 saplings last spring :)

…ANYWAY, about 5 or 10 m from the pier we come across this cutey:

It’s a juvenile Port Jackson shark. The poor thing was tethered by the hook stuck in it’s mouth. I guess the line broke or it was cut too far up because a swivel further up the line had caught on some weed… Ross has a go at removing the hook (we’d forgotten at that point about the barbs by their dorsal spines, but he didn’t get spiked so all was well!). He couldn’t get the hook out but he broke the line so the poor thing could swim away… it didn’t fight much and it swum away quite slowly; I hope the hook rusts out soon and that it hadn’t been too weakend…

As I said, we stayed, ‘here’, Phillip Island, in a house with a couple of friends. There were kayaking trips exploring mangroves and the stunning surf bashed southern coast (thanks to some northerly winds calming the ocean down). There were cliff walks (and scrambles because not going up and down cliffs is boring). There were dives: an amazing rock feature called the pinnacle (an underwater version of the one in the userpic), rising from the sea floor at 45m (147ft) to a peak at 8m(26ft), where we saw sharks and walls of soft corals; a dive on the wreck of the ‘George Kermode’; a shore dive for abalone, but also saw another small shark I have not seen before at Smith’s beach. My left sinus was painful on all dives and I’ll have to give it a rest now, but it was worth it.