Forty minutes south of Melbourne city there is a hill overlooking Port Phillip Bay. (It might even have been “an hill”, grammatically speaking!) The first British explorers entered the bay in 1802 and subsequently named the hill Arthurs Seat due to its resemblance to Arthur’s Seat hill in Edinburgh, Scotland. The main difference appears to be the lack of an apostrophe in the Australian version.
Captain Matthew Flinders was the first European to scale Arthurs Seat. So it was probably his grammatical shortcoming that was the source of this difference! Apparently, he left the ship’s name on a scroll of paper, deposited in a small pile of stones at the top of the peak. Here, Flinders was following the British tradition of constructing a stone cairn to mark an historical location. The Matthew Flinders’ Cairn, which was later enlarged …
… is located on the upper slopes of Arthurs Seat, a short distance below Chapman’s Point. An easy walk from the Eagle (explained later!). Easy, if you set off in the right direction! We took 90 minutes to find it! But when we did we had a superb view over the bay towards the Heads. “It’s behind you!”
A chairlift ascending the hill of Arthurs Seat was opened in 1960 and closed again 46 years later.
In 2015, work began on constructing a replacement, the Arthurs Seat Eagle. This was after many years of planning – and 10 years without a passenger hoist up the hill. And it would have been a nifty walk!
Luckily, the Eagle whisked us to the summit with very little effort on our part.
After walking half way round the summit circuit track (in the wrong direction) we eventually discovered Flinders’ Cairn. Just where it was supposed to be!
After a lunch snack in McCrea, we had a short walk on the beach by the McCrea lighthouse.
The current lighthouse was built in England in 1874, transported to Australia and assembled in McCrae in 1883. At 33.5 metres high, it is Port Phillip’s tallest lighthouse. It had been guiding mariners for over 100 years by the time it was officially retired in 1994. During 2021 it was repainted in its original colour (bright white) and generally restored as a tourist attraction. And very attractive it is too! The sandy beach is lovely as well …
… just a bit too crowded for our liking!
After a great stay with Jeff and Laurel (thank you again guys!), it was back to Tullamarine Airport where we had to go through security so many times I lost count. First my belt buckle triggered the alarms. “Please try again.” On the next pass it was my credit card that made me bleep. “Try again!” Next time through the scanner it was a 20 cent coin in my pocket! “Again!” Then on the fourth pass, I was pulled aside as a random check! Would you believe it?
Eventually I was reunited with Glenda, only to find that she had been “arrested” for trying to smuggle a pair of nail clippers and a small penknife onto the plane in our cabin bags! We had the option to go back outside the secure area and put the offending articles in the hand luggage and check it in. As we had plenty of luggage allowance and heaps of time to spare, we elected to do just that. With a few recriminatory comments along the way, it is fair to say!
So, back to security. Credit card, belt and 20 cent coin were safely deposited in the tray for scanning (fast learners, us!). So, why was I pulled aside AGAIN? I was subject to yet another random check – by the same lady as did it 20 minutes previously! Phew. Lucky we had three hours to wait for our flight!
But, no. We have four hours because our flight is delayed! The departures board had 24 flights listed. 22 (including ours) were delayed, one was cancelled and the sole remaining flight was scheduled to leave on time! I suspect this was something to do with the recent torrential rain and massive flooding all over the south-east corner of Australia. And it’s a big corner! Lots of planes in the wrong place and at the wrong time!
We ended up in Virgin territory with a big storm approaching. After the rain cleared it was clear that one of the baggage trucks had dropped something in their haste to get under cover!
The next day, back in the warm (about 25°C warmer), we visited Coolum Beach for a three mile walk on the hard sands at low tide.
More adventures in Queensland to follow.