Capel Sound - October 2015

Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound, Last Hope Sound and now Capel Sound, now I've got a fair idea what you're thinking, 'where has this tosser been now'. Well the truth is it's not really that exotic, Capel Sound is actually Rosebud West, yes Victoria's own version of 'god's waiting room' where all the cars have hats on the parcel racks and carpet on the dash. Even the locals must think Capel Sound rolls off the tongue a little better than Rosebud West as there is a grass roots campaign running to actually officially change the name. Now I'd normally regale you with a few facts about Capel Sound about now but there is not a lot of information floating around the interweb about Capel Sound, the best I can come up with is it is thought to be named after a Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's Far East squadron, a Mr Thomas Bladen Capel way back in 1836. Not having a lot of joy finding information about Capel Sound I figured that I could just crap on about the difference between a 'sound' and a 'fiord' for a bit, but on consulting Wikipedia ( hey its good enough for our environment minister!), and reading the first sentence my eyes immediately glazed over (come to think of it the same thing happens when I listen to our aforementioned environment minister, Mr Hunt). This is what Wikipedia says about a 'sound'...."A sound is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, and wider than a fiord; or a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land", is it just my year ten public school educated brain or is that a bit vague? Anyway now everyone is clear on why Capel Sound is a 'sound' I suppose I'd better talk about the walk.

Rosebud Pier.

First up I've got to say this isn't a hard walk that's going to throw navigational challengers at you, I basically walked from Rosebud Pier along the beach down to Rye Pier, before heading inland twenty metres or so and walking back to Rosebud Pier along the multi use path that runs along the foreshore. After parking the ute I headed out onto the pier to see if I could get a good shot as a 'start' photo, you'll have to judge for yourselves but I was a little under-whelmed with my work, Arthurs Seat did look okay and the turquoise water and white sand of Port Phillip Bay looked pretty good in the midday sun, but I struggled to do much with it.

Looking up Port Phillip Bay towards Arthurs Seat.

Returning to the sand I took off my boots, turned right (west), and kept going for around 9 kilometres. Being the day of the AFL Grandfinal the beaches today weren't overly crowded, even though with a temperature in the high twenties it was almost perfect beach weather. I'm not totally disorganized and I'd timed this walk with a lowish tide so the sand walking was pretty easy, I spent some time just above the waterline but where I could I splashed my way along the extensive sand banks that the low tide had exposed. Walking this coastline has a bit of another era feeling about it, with small fishing dingy's bobbing in the shallow water in spots, and a foreshore lined with boathouses and pine trees, it feels like a 1960's seaside resort, or maybe its just me?

One thing that doesn't make me think of the 1960's is the kite surfers, with a pretty decent north westerly blowing  the kite surfers were out in large numbers, these guys and girls are amazing and I spent a lot of my time ambling along whilst checking out their gravity defying manoeuvres. Crossing over Chinamans Creek I was pleased to see that someone had spent a lot of time re-vegetating the creek and its surroundings area, a credit to the (what I presume are) volunteers. I now walked along a relatively quiet stretch off the bay being halfway between Rosebud and Rye, at one stage walking through a large group of Black Swans floating in the water just off shore, I'm not sure why they congregate in that particular place but congregate they did.

These kite surfers are amazing to watch.

Chinamans Creek.

I'm not sure what the 'go' was with this spot but the Black Swans seemed to like it.

By now, after plugging away through the shallows for a couple of hours, my half way point had come into view. It was with a little relief to my tired feet that I finally left the sand and water and climbed onto dry land and pulled on my boots. After checking out Rye Pier I headed onto the foreshore and turned left (east) and started my return journey along the foreshore reserve. Now I didn't have high hopes for this section of today's stroll as the track is wedged into a small sliver of land between the beach and the Nepean Highway, but maybe as I was fearing the worst, or maybe because my feet were happy to be in boots and off the sand but the walk back wasn't too bad really. I'd better add a word of warning here though in case anyone wants to follow my steps, this section would be misery in the summer months as the annual migration of holiday makers in their caravans and tents occurs, the foreshore becomes our equivalent of a shanty town with all the punters jammed in cheek by jowl, all anxious to feel the serenity, I'd give it a miss.

I was enjoying walking in bare feet after weeks of walking in my boots, well at least for the first hour or so anyway.

My halfway point is just in view.

The Norfolk Island Pines on the Rye foreshore.

Rye Pier.

Arthurs Seat from the end of the Rye Pier, time to start heading back.

Anyway by now I was getting a little tired so I was quite happy when I notice a sign telling me that it was only a couple of kilometres back to Rosebud. The forecast for today had been for mostly sunny conditions so I'd driven down with anticipation of a bit of polariser abuse, the reality today though was that I got basically grey and overcast conditions all afternoon. Just before getting back to the ute I decided to head back down to the beach and see if I could get anything out of the sunset, once again you'll have to be the judge but once again I was under-whelmed with my effort. All that was left now was to amble back the last few metres, chuck everything into the ute and head home.

My return route was along the bay trail that runs along the foreshore.

I've made it back to the swans.

The Dirt.

I'm not sure if it comes across in my writing but I actually didn't mind this walk, yeah it would have been better with blue skies, but what do you do? It was nice to walk along in bare feet splashing through the shallow water after spending three weeks in boots in the UK, and while its definitely not a wilderness area its great to see the results of the people who must put in a lot of volunteer hours caring for the beach and its foreshore. I walked almost 19 kilometres on this stroll and climbed just over 60 metres (it must have been bending over to take photo's as you wouldn't get a flatter walk). The section of the walk from Chinamans Creek to Rye has been written up by Ken Martin in the book 'Walks of the Mornington Peninsula', from what I can tell he doesn't have a web site so no link.

Looking down Port Phillip Bay, or across Capel Sound, towards Port Phillip Heads.

My last forlorn attempt to capture an interesting image today.