You are here

Sorrento and Portsea, October 2002

Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/08/2012 - 20:12

Driving south from Euroa, I decided that I wanted to avoid going near to Melbourne if possible. So I chose a route that went down through the Yarra ranges. As I got south of this part of the Great Dividing Range, the weather got a lot worse as I had been warned it might. It was raining, which limited what I could do, so I pushed further south and down to the Mornington Peninsula, which encloses Port Philip Bay on the eastern side.

Abandoned barracks at Point Nepean
I was going to stay at the YHA in Sorrento. I hadn't booked, but like most of the places I'd visited recently, that wasn't a problem. There were only a handful of people staying there. The manager was a friendly kind of guy, the rooms were reasonable, and there was a wood stove in the common room. The later was quite important because it was down to about 10ºC. The wind howling off the Southern Ocean made it feel much colder.

There were a few restaurants in town and some cafes, but it's quite a trendy place in the summer, so it's not cheap. Only one pub was open and they were in the middle of redecorating. After a drink to wash down my dinner, I couldn't really be bothered and even Australian TV sounded more interesting.

The next morning, I went to the Mornington National Park, or Point Nepean to be more precise. It used to be defence land and wasn't open to the public until 1988. Cars aren't allowed inside the park. There is a car park at one end, but you then need to walk, cycle or ride on some carts pulled by a tractor. I decided to walk as I was feeling energetic. The round trip is about 7km and it was nice spring morning. To start with, I walked along the beach on the sheltered, Philip Bay side of the peninsula. The beach ends at some cliffs, so I came back inland and had a look at Cheviot Beach. This is on the exposed ocean side and was pretty rough. There's a memorial to Harold Holt, who disappeared whilst swimming there in 1967. He was the Prime Minister at the time. I think Australia is unique in having lost a serving Prime Minister.

Then there were some small forts to have a look around and some gun emplacements. A soundtrack was playing with soldiers shouting in the background, which added something to the atmosphere. Of course, at this point, furthest from the car park, it started to rain. I was wished I'd chosen the lazy route and paid the couple of dollars extra to use the transporter, but it soon stopped and I was able to stroll back to the car without getting too wet.

I had arranged to go diving with Dive Victoria, a shop in Portsea, which is just next to Sorrento. The weather didn't look promising but I had a number to ring to check if the dive was still on. The answer phone message wasn't very clear. It said that dives to the Ship's Graveyard were off. I was down to dive the Coodgee, and didn't really know if it was in the graveyard or not. The map on the wall in the YHA implied it was, but when I checked the next morning, the dive was on.

So in somewhat of a rush, I went over to Portsea, which is only about 5 minutes away. The conditions in Victoria are obviously more challenging than in other parts of the country. So the Victorian shops have come up with a series of level grades for each dive and diver. You also need cold water experience before you're allowed to dive without a DM. This seems highly sensible, especially given the standard of some of the divers up in Queensland.

Naturally I was fine with my UK experience and had booked myself on the Coodgee, a wreck in about 34m. Drysuits weren't available, so I had to make do with a two piece 7mm wetsuit. My hired cylinder was steel and even had a DIN valve on it. There were also plenty of twinsets waiting to be filled and quite a few steel backplates. I had to pinch myself to remind me that I was still in Australia. I got the impression that everyone else there was a regular. Sitting in the back, I put my kit together and then asked the guy next to me where the boats were. He gave me this suspicious look and seemed surprised that I hadn't dived there before. I was very tempted to tell him that I'd just done my Open Water in Queensland, but just about managed to restrain myself.

Ocean side beach at Point Nepean
I found the boat, got on and one of the staff asked where my pony bottle was. It's a requirement below 30m apparently. This seemed eminently sensible, but it would have been nice if someone had mentioned it earlier. He went off and got me one. It was rigged as a stage, so I had no problems attaching it to my Transpac.

The wreck was outside of the bay and as we approached the entrance, called The Rip, it was obvious it was going to be a bit rough. The trip wasn't long, but there were a few of us looking a bit green by the time we got there. They put a shotline in and didn't moor the boat. It was just like the UK. So I jumped in, swam to the shotline and took firm hold of it. Then I realised that no-one else had bothered. It wasn't quite like the UK. There wasn't any current to speak of.

We went down the line and at the bottom was the wreck. It reminded me of Cornwall apart from the surge, which was very noticeable even at that depth. The viz was about 8m and there were a pair of big boilers. There were also some largish sections of bow and stern intact. There was still some railings around the bow and the stern was covered in anemones. There were some fish, though not loads, and I can't say that I recognised most of them. This was new territory for me. Water temperature was 15ºC, though I didn't feel too cold. But I knew that my body had chilled down a lot, so a second dive was another matter entirely. Our total dive time was 30 minutes and the maximum depth was 31.6m. It would have been nice to do it on nitrox, which they do pump in the shop.

We went straight back into the bay for some shelter before the hot drinks were passed around. Then it was back to the shop, where they apologised for not mentioning the pony bottle, and they didn't charge me for it. They also told me to get in contact next time so that I could do some deeper, trimix dives if I wanted. I don't think they get many trimix qualified divers through there, so they're probably quite keen to do deep stuff when they can.

After the dive, I went back for some lunch in Sorrento before driving onto the car ferry, which took me across the bay to Queenscliff and the start of the Great Ocean Road.

[Back] Back to Oz Index [More] Onto the Great Ocean Road