DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF VICTORIA   

Atlas Page 33
By James Smith

COAST LINE  -  EAST 

Relatively to the area of the colony, its coast line is somewhat extended, owing to such spacious indentations as Port Phillip Bay, Western Port and Corner Inlet; as also to the southward trend of the land at the two points known as Cape Otway and Wilson’s Promontory. Roughly speaking, there are about six hundred miles of sea margin between Cape Howe at the eastern, and Mount Ruskin at the western extremity of the Victorian coast. Starting from the boundary line between die colony of New South Wales and the most easterly of the counties into which its offspring has been divided, the first object which meets the eye is the rocky island of Gabo, composed of porphyritic granite, upon which a lighthouse has been erected standing about one hundred and eighty feet above the sea-level. It is therefore sighted by vessels passing southward before reaching Cape Howe, and by those proceeding northward as soon as they are abreast of Ram Head. At the point where the submarine cable from the lighthouse touches the shore the coast line is crescent-shaped, its southern horn resting on Little Ram Head. Here some bold cliffs, flanking the ocean, attain an altitude of nearly two hundred feet, and sweep round to Bastion Point, situated in the centre of the crescent, whence they decline in height to sixty-three feet. Close by is Mallacoota Inlet, a narrow neck of water which gives admission to the Purgagoolah Lakes, embosomed in wooded hills, and receiving the whole of the discharge of the Wallagaraugh and Genoa Rivers. Both of these take their rise in New South Wales, the Genoa flowing down in a south-easterly direction between two mountain ranges, which help to augment its volume by their watershed. After rounding Ram Head, Petrel Point and Cape Everard (or Hicks Point) come in view; the latter a bold headland forming the southern spur of a range which culminates in Mount Everard, seven miles inland and one thousand two hundred feet high. Eight miles to the westward of this, Tamboon Inlet gives access to three lakes, united by narrow channels and fed by two streams, the Noorinbee and the Tamboon, the courses of which are still unexplored. From this inlet to the mouth of the Snowy River, the coast is for the most part marshy, with here and there a reedy lagoon, and here and there a shallow lake, which serve as breeding-places for innumerable wild fowl, and as secure and secluded coverts for their young. One of these lakes, which has obtained the name of Sydenham Inlet, is, however, of tolerably large proportions, and is united by a channel a mile long with a smaller sheet of water encircled by hills. But, excepting that the position of Mount Cann, about ten miles to the northward, has been defined, the country for fifty miles inland remains unexplored. At Cape Conran commences what is commonly called the Ninety-mile Beach, although in reality it is of much greater extent, stretching, in fact, as far as the entrance to Corner Inlet. Nine or ten miles from the point at which it commences, the Snowy River, whose rise is at no great distance from the sources of the Murrumbidgee in New South Wales, pours into the ocean its opulent flood, to which a hundred tributaries have lent their waters. The Ninety-mile Beach may be described in general terms as a prolonged and attenuated sand bar, separating the sea from an equally narrow strip of lagoons locally designated the Back Lakes, inside of which are the greater sheets of water to which we shall hereafter have occasion more particularly to refer. Between Shallow Inlet east and the entrance to Corner Inlet quite an archipelago has been formed under circumstances similar, in all probability, to those which were instrumental in building up the islets upon which the city of Venice was constructed, the rivers Albert and Tarra bringing down alluvium from the land, and the sea casting up sand banks as it comes rushing in. At the mouth of the Albert lies a little, fishing town, which has taken its name from the river. It is peopled by a hardy race of boatmen, to whose exertions the metropolis of Victoria is partly indebted for its supply of fish.

Unfortunately, their sources of livelihood are precarious in the extreme, especially during the summer months, when it not unfrequently happens that the entire consignment is ordered to be destroyed, in consequence of not reaching the market in a condition fit for human consumption. There are numerous indications of coal in the surrounding district, and hopes are confidently expressed that this portion of Victoria will become famous for its collieries. Some rich patches of gold have been struck at the foot of the Middle Range, and the neighbouring forests yield an abundance of the finest timber. About twenty years ago the Government expended a large sum of money in the erection of a pier at Welshpool, in order to facilitate the shipment of the produce of the surrounding country, but it was shortly afterwards burnt down, it is believed by an incendiary; only a mass of charred timber serves to mark its site and commemorate the disaster.

From the entrance to Corner Inlet the coast line ruins down nearly due south, for a distance of more than five-and-twenty miles, to the extremity of a mountainous peninsula, having an average breadth of sixteen miles and terminating in the bold headland known as Wilson’s Promontory. On the eastern side it is indented by Scalers’ Cove and Waterloo Bay, between which the land juts out so as to form four prominences, entitled Horn Point, Hobb’s Head, Brown’s Head and Cape Wellington a well-sheltered harbour, appropriately, named Refuge Cove, lies between the second and third of these. On the western, which is also the windward side of the peninsula, there are three bays —Leonard, Norman and Oberon —partially protected from the violence of the sea by some islands four or five miles distant from the mainland and following its southerly trend. By far the greater part of the area of the peninsula is covered by irregular ranges, or by isolated mountains, which nowhere attain a greater altitude than two thousand five hundred feet, but, massed together, present an imposing appearance by reason of their bulk. Such trees as flourish on their slopes are deflected and contorted by the fierce winds with which they have to wrestle both in summer and winter, and the sea mists which are driven inwards are condensed into rain as they impinge upon the shaggy sides of Mount Boulder, Mount Wilson, Mount Oberon and Mount Ramsay, and thus form the sources of half-a-dozen streams which speedily lose themselves in the ocean.

Wilson’s Promontory is the most southerly point of the Victorian coast, and is crowned by a lighthouse which rises nearly four hundred feet above the level of the sea. From the eminence on which it stands, the cliff shelves obliquely downward to the roaring surf below, which, when a strong south-westerly, gale is blowing, leaps up the rocky, barrier erected by Nature against its encroachments, and is shattered into clouds of spray, or churned into snow-white ridges of froth and foam. Nor can anything be imagined more sullen, or more sombre, than the aspect of this grim headland when it is partially, enveloped in fogs, which augment the magnitude of its mass, while blurring its outline, and only partially reveal the pharos which stands upon its crest.

From South-west Point, nearly parallel with the lighthouse, but lying on the opposite side of the promontory, the coast curves upward for nearly thirty miles to Waratah Bay, the line being broken only at Shallow Inlet, through which an entrance is gained to Yanakie Lake, about eight miles in length but nowhere exceeding two in breadth, with a large tract of marshy country on its right shore and the commencement of a mountain range at its northern extremity. In respect to contour, Waratah Bay is one of the handsomest on the Victorian, coast. Its shape is that of a half-moon, and it is encircled by a range of hills on its western side. From Bell Point, which may be taken as defining its boundary to the east, it is ten miles to the entrance of Shallow Inlet directly opposite. The little promontory upon which the township of Waratah is situated runs down to the narrow point of Cape Liptrap, a few miles behind which a hill about five hundred and fifty feet in height, and bearing the same name, constitutes a prominent landmark. On the west shore of Waratah Bay, a little to the northward of the Bird Rock, there is an outcrop of fine limestone composed of ten layers, varying in thickness from six to ten feet, with a cave underneath the lower stratum, while ‘the summit of the bluff is overlaid by a mass of ferruginous sandstone, in which quantities of brown iron ore of great purity have been found. The whole formation is believed to belong to the upper silurian series, and its value, from an economic point of view, must be considerable, for the texture, as described by Mr. G. H. P. Ulrich, is "crystalline granular, varying from fine to coarse grained, and it assumes in places —more especially at the base of the bluff —the character of a black and white mottled and veined marble, suitable for chimney pieces and other ornamental building work." An analysis made by Mr. Cosmo Newbery shews it to be one of the purest limestones yet discovered in Victoria, containing as it does nearly ninety-five per cent. of carbonate of lime, its other components being, carbonate of iron, silicate of alumina, and water, with traces of carbonate of magnesia.

After passing Cape Liptrap, the coast makes an abrupt bend to the northward, with a slight westerly inclination, and the range to which Mount Liptrap belongs dips downward to the sea at the point; close to the shore, which is marshy in places and intersected by shallow lakes and reedy lagoons, lie half-a-dozen diminutive islands. At Point Smythe the entrance is reached of a large estuary curving round in a south-easterly direction for a distance of ten miles, but nowhere exceeds two in breadth. It is known as Anderson’s Inlet, and receives the waters of the Tarwin, a river, that takes its rise in the ranges near Mirboo, forty or fifty miles distant from the coast; but its intermediate divagations are as yet undefined. Opposite to Point Smythe is Point Norman, a mile or two south of which rises in Venus Bay an isolated mass, appropriately named the Petrel Rock, for here

Amidst the flashing of feathery foam,
The stormy petrel finds a home;
A home, if such a place may be,
For her who lives on the wide, wide sea.

Four miles to the westward of the entrance to Venus Bay is Cape Paterson. In its immediate neighbourhood are numerous coal seams, but in no case have the shafts, which were sunk to test the thickness of the veins, revealed the existence of more than two feet four inches of coal, lying for the most part upon sandy or dark grey shales, interspersed with bands of indurated clay.

After passing Cape Paterson, we skirt the county of Mornington for a distance of fifteen miles, as the crow flies, to the eastern entrance to Western Port, where the most notable landmark is the narrow promontory, resembling the head of a spear, which juts out into the sea from Phillip Island, with Cape Woolamai at its acute point. Upon this bluff, which is connected with the island by a narrow ridge of rock, thousands of mutton birds annually congregate for the purpose of laying their eggs and rearing their young, acting in concert, organised like a regiment of soldiers, and taking up the positions assigned to them by their leaders with an order, a regularity and an obedience, denoting a rare intelligence and the perfection of discipline. Their collective resting-place is a huge parallelogram, surrounded by a low wall of stones. It is swept smooth by the birds, and subdivided into a number of square enclosures, in the centre of which the female bird hollows out a cavity wherein to deposit her eggs, and when the process of incubation has been completed, and the young are sufficiently strong for flight, the whole colony takes wing to other regions, from which it will return, in the year following, almost on the very day aid hour of its previous visit.

Phillip Island presents a general resemblance in shape to a turtle, with its carapace to the north, its head to the west, and one fin stretched out so as to form what is called Pyramid Rock. The southern coast line, from Point Grant to Cape Woolamai, a distance of five and twenty miles, is defined by ruddy cliffs of ironstone, rising to a height of a hundred feet, and scooped into hollows by the action of the waves. At low water, masses of black rock are seen stretching far out into the sea, and presenting the appearance of a huge causeway roughly paved with boulders worn to the same level, and curiously fissured by the incessant planing of the sea; the breakers that roll in upon this rugged platform from the south-west marking their sinuous outline by a broad and fluctuating fringe of foam. At a little distance from the shore the waves have sculptured some outlying rocks into fantastic shapes. One of these has received the appropriate appellation of the Pyramid, and another at the western extremity of the island is so amorphous as to have acquired the vague title of the Nobby. On the opposite side of the broad opening, through which a strong current runs into Western Port with every inflow of the tide, a bold promontory is thrown out in a south-westerly direction, sheltering a little bay, around which are clustered the rudiments of a future watering place, with a natural amphitheatre for its "undercliff." It bears the name of Flinders, and is the point of departure for the submarine cable connecting the Australian continent with the island of Tasmania. For some miles to the westward, masses of crag are met with that look like ruined fortresses; they are isolated fragments of the ironbound coast that have been detached from the grim and storm-beaten cliffs that frown down upon them. The restless sea sometimes creeps up to them as if to take a stealthy glance at the resistance capable of being offered by their bulk and strength to the advancing waves; at other times it leaps at them like a raging, wild beast, and fills all the country-side with its resounding roar. Such, indeed, is the character of the coast scenery all along the bold headland stretching as far as Cape Schank —with its lighthouse occupying a commanding position for the guidance of vessels voyaging from the eastward, the westward, or the southward —and the romantic mass of basalt, deeply coloured by olivine and augite, known as the Pulpit Rock lifting its rugged form above the angry waters which always surge, and sometimes furiously rave, about its base. From Cape Schank the coast is deflected obliquely and almost in a straight line to the north-west. It consists for the most part of sand hummocks and dunes. These are found on examination to be largely composed of pulverised shells, sponge-spiculae, polyzoa, formanifera, and spines of the echini, thrown up and triturated apparently by the action of the "hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts," under the strong compulsion of the south-westerly gales, which prevail in this region at certain seasons of the year.

Point Nepean and Point Lonsdale mark the entrance to Port Phillip Heads, passing which, the coast line curves round in a westerly direction to the Barwon Heads, where the boldly projecting headland designated Point Flinders serves as a breakwater to shelter the entrance to Lake Connewarre, into which are poured the waters of the Barwon. Thence the coast trends continually downwards towards the south-west, until it reaches its most southerly point in this part of Victoria at Cape Otway. In the interval, something like a hundred creeks discharge their currents into the sea, and the scenery on shore assumes a character of remarkable grandeur and beauty after passing the village of Puebla. For a distance of sixty miles the landwall is composed of carbonaceous mesozoic rocks upwards of three hundred feet in thickness, exposed in almost continuous sections as far as Stony Creek, and obtaining in one place the grim appellation of the Demon’s Bluff. They are geologically interesting, because, according to the report of Mr. P. M. Krause, who was one of the first to explore the district in 1873, the range which now forms the watershed between the Barwon and Gellibrand Rivers, "was in tertiary times an island about seventy miles long in a south-westerly direction, and from ten to sixteen miles in breadth, with a chain of hills upwards of one thousand feet in height." So rugged is the coast that, from Barwon Heads to Cape Otway, there are only two places at which it is possible to effect a landing, namely, Loutit Bay and Apollo Bay, and neither of these is easily accessible when a south-easterly wind is blowing. The ranges, which run inland for a distance of upwards of twenty miles in a northerly direction from Apollo Bay, and reach their culminating point at Mount Sabine, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea-level, are densely wooded: on the tertiary slopes honeysuckle scrub, the grass tree and ti-tree are found to prevail; the stringy-bark predominates on the lower spurs, while the iron-bark flourishes at a loftier elevation; near the corner of the range, messmate and blue gum rise out of a thick undergrowth of shrubs and creepers; in the valleys the vegetation is luxuriant in the extreme, the blue gum, the beech, and the blackwood being intermingled with the tree-fern, so that the finest foliage of the Australian forest is here combined and contrasted with an enchanting effect. Owing to the number of springs which issue from the northern slopes of the range and the moisture of the atmosphere, the tree-ferns not merely abound in their natural habitat among the damp valleys, but climb to the summit of the secondary spurs and crown them with their graceful plumes. The lighthouse at Cape Otway is admirably placed at the western extremity of an imposing headland about three miles in width, if measured from Point Flinders to Point Franklin; the land rising behind it to a plateau, composed of calcareous sandstone, overlaid in places by dunes, the result of sand washed up on the shore and thence swept inland by the south-westerly gales. These dunes contain curious concretions resembling the fossilised branches and roots of trees, for which, in fact, they have been occasionally mistaken; on examination, however, they are found to be composed of a magnesian limestone.

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