A boat ride in Western Port
Last Thursday I was lucky enough to go for a boat ride around Western Port as a guest of the Victorian National Parks Association, along with a bunch of other people.
For the uninitiated, Western Port is a bay that sits between Port Phillip Bay and Wilsons Promontory on the Bass Coast of Victoria. Phillip Island sits at the mouth of Western Port and French Island sits right in the middle so it's possible to do boat-laps around French Island.
We disembarked from Stony Point which is a utilitarian-looking jetty right at the end of the Stony Point train line. I am yet to catch the train out here but I would like to some day.
In the public toilets there was a sticker on the wall that went something like this:
A massive thanks to the unsung heroes that clean the piles of bodies from the streets every night
I can't figure out if this is a conspiracy theory or just a really freaking cool sticker. Now I'm thinking: a short story about 'last responders'.
Western Port itself is something of an ecological gem. It is host to migrating birds from as far away as Russia and also has seals, reefs and all sorts of other things, including ghost shrimp which at the very least sound cool. It is one of 67 Ramsar-listed wetlands in Australia and one of only five UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Australia.
Western Port accommodates some heavy industry, including the Esso (ExxonMobil) crude oil and LPG export site, and BlueScope Steel wharves and United Petroleum terminal. It is under increasing pressure from urban development at Packenham and Cranbourne as well as expansion of the Port of Hastings, and has ongoing water quality issues from agricultural runoff.
As a result of all this, there is a huge amount of community support for better management of the bay.
One might also speculate the existence of a Grey Host of ghost shrimp led by a king that dwells in the Burrows of the Dead among the seagrasses. Woe betide any who prevent them from fulfilling their oath.
I was hoping to get some better photos but I chose my camera lens poorly and the weather wasn't very conducive. Still, I do love a boat ride. Perhaps one clear day I'll catch the train down and try again.
