Point Nepean, Point Nepean National Park - February 2016

Last weekend we had some friends visit from interstate, I first met Deb and Greg when we walked to Machu Picchu in Peru together last year and with them coming over to Melbourne for a weekend I was looking for somewhere to take them on a bit of a stroll. After a bit of procrastinating in my mind I figured that a trip down to an old favourite in Point Nepean might be the go, and with a promised temperature of around 30C forecast the thought of a swim in one of the bay beaches sealed the deal. Now if there is anyone out there who regularly reads my waffle they'll know that I did a post about Point Nepean last year, but the area is constantly evolving as Parks Vic clean up the old military area, so I was reasonably confident that I'd find something new to photograph.

An old gun emplacement near Cheviot Beach looking out over Bass Strait.

So after breakfast at the great Merricks General Wine Store, a place where the food is much better than the name may imply, we arrived at the start of the walk at Gunners Cottage late in the morning. I was once again using Melanie Balls notes and map so after leaving the ute we crossed the access road that bisects the park and headed towards the Cheviot Beach lookout, on the way passing by an old firing range that still has plenty of signs warning us not to stray into the scrub in case we get blown up by some un exploded ordinance. As I mentioned in my last post about Point Nepean, Cheviot Beach is famous as the spot where our 17th Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim and never came back. No sign of Harold today but the wild beach was looking quite nice on this beautiful day, you could even kid yourself that it might have been a nice place to sit out the war at one of the nearby gun emplacements, although I reckon the salt water showers would have done me in.

Cheviot Beach, no sign of old Harold though.

Leaving Cheviot Beach lookout we meandered our way down to the tip of the Mornington Peninsula at Point Nepean. The walking down here is a mixture of dedicated walking tracks and the bitumen access track, the bitumen track is actually a lot better than may be imagined as there are views both out to Bass Strait and over Port Phillip Bay and the road is closed to all vehicles except for the bus that transports the punters down to the old fort. After passing a machine gun emplacement, cut into the tea tree covered dune with its great view down onto the bay beach towards Observatory Point, we made our way to the extensive concrete bunkers of Fort Pearce which itself has a great view, although it looks out over the wilder coastline of Bass Strait and not the calmer waters of Port Phillip Bay. From Fort Pearce to Fort Nepean the road runs along a narrow isthmus, the peninsula is that narrow at this point that you could almost kick a football from Bass Strait into Port Phillip Bay.

The view down from the machine gun emplacement to the bay beach, the Queenscliff ferry in the top of the photo.

Bass Strait from near Fort Pearce.

Looking towards The Rip from Point Nepean.

Rounding Point Nepean with its commanding views over The Rip, the narrow entrance to Port Phillip Bay, we checked out the extensive Fort Nepean. Every time I come to Point Nepean National Park I seem to find another new nook or cranny to check out and this visit was no different, instead of climbing the long concrete staircase up to the the tunnels we headed into the Engineers Building and climbed up a series of staircases past the gun emplacement that fired the first shots of WW1 against a German Freighter..... oh and a Tasmanian freighter in WW2. After a quick exploration of the labyrinth of tunnels that is Fort Nepean we started our return journey back to the ute, once again enjoying the beautiful coastal scenery.

The historic engineers building.

The engineers had a reasonable view too!

The first shot fired in anger in WW1.

Next stop on our walk was Eagles Nest with its many and varied gun emplacements all looking out over some picture perfect coastal scenery, the Mornington Peninsula now stretching out before us. By now though our thoughts were turning towards food (yeah, yeah I know, nothing unusual about that!) so we didn't linger to to long. I normally drop down onto the beach now and beach comb my way along to the old jetty at Observatory Point but unfortunately the beach and steps have been reclaimed by nature (Maybe something to do with dredging the Port Phillip Bay Heads?) so today we tracked along the coast slightly inland along Coles Track through the tea tree. 

Looking back up the Mornington Peninsula, Port Phillip Bay on the left, the slightly wilder Bass Strait on the right.

A beautiful Port Phillip Bay beach near Eagles Nest.

After a quick side trip out to the old cattle jetty, which confirmed that the bay was indeed looking good for a swim, we made our way back towards Gunners Cottage passing through an area that had been badly burnt in a bush fire a few years earlier, its skeleton like trees having their own stark beauty against the blue sky. Our last stop before arriving back at the ute was the old Quarantine Station Cemetery, the lonely graves dating back to the 1850's when the clipper Ticonderoga arrived from England rife with typhoid. Taking off the boots and climbing into the ute we headed to Sorrento for a (very) late lunch, before meandering our way up the Mornington Peninsula back home, stopping at a nice quiet beach in Mount Eliza for that long anticipated swim. I had really enjoyed playing tour guide for Deb and Greg, I reckon my backyard scrubbed up OK.

The Harold Holt memorial, looking out over Bass Strait.

Coles Track made for easy walking.

The old cattle jetty near Observatory Point.

We get the odd bush fire down at Point Nepean, most of the coastal scrub generally recovers well though.

The old Quarantine Cemetery.

The Dirt.

We walked 10.7 kilometres and climbed 214 metres today on this easy stroll. Point Nepean makes for a good day out, like I mentioned above I've visited many times over the years but I always finding something new to check out. The history of the place is well explained with interperative signs as well as a lot of audio recordings in the old installations. We roughly followed Melanie Ball's notes from Top Walks in Victoria and the notes along with the map are all that's needed, alternatively Parks Vic would have a lot of free stuff on line that you could access to complete the walk, you're not going to get lost at Point Nepean National Park. Finally, as I mentioned at the start of the post I actually wrote up a post about this National Park last year, if you want to check out some more photos here's the link to that post. 

I think the Mornington Peninsula scrubbed up alright today.