A day out

Yesterday I drove a visiting writer friend down to Queenscliff, on the beach, where she was going to do a week of intensive work on a joint project with another writer friend. It was a glorious Spring day — clear and sunny with a balmy breeze — a gift after a patch of cold, rainy, miserable weather.

My original plan was to take my friend there, have lunch with them and then go back home, where I had a mound of work waiting for me, but it was so beautiful I allowed myself to be talked into a walk. A long walk. And then dinner.

 We walked around the salt water inlet — Swan Bay and saw pelicans, black swans, seagulls and oystercatchers

There's a group of steam engine enthusiasts who, on certain days, run a little engine from Queenscliff to Drysdale — it's a Thomas the Tank Engine choo-choo train, with the face on the front, and there's even a Fat Controller, who looked wonderful in his top hat and formal coat.

I didn't take a photo of the front, with Thomas's face, and I missed the Fat Controller, but here's the little train choofing past us, with a bunch of happy kids on board.

We took the dog, too.

 After Swan Bay we cut across (Queenscliff is a kind of small promontory) and got our first glimpse of the ocean. 

On the way we saw a beautiful Eastern Rosella sitting in a bottle brush tree. Isn't he a handsome fellow?

We wandered back along the ocean beach, picking up shells and the occasional bit of sea-glass (for my jewellery) and admiring the contents of the rock-pools. Here are baby mussels growing in colonies around the edge of a rock pool — they're only visible for a few hours of the day.

It was so refreshing and cleansing to be on the beach in the sun.

We rounded the point, one of the heads of Port Phillip Bay, where there is an old fort built on top of and into the rocky outcrop. I loved the sea-worn rocks.

 Once inside the bay, the beach was strewn with seaweed of all kinds, including an amazing variety of pink seaweed. I gathered some of the pink ones up but I haven't sorted them out yet for a photo. But here's one little clump.

And the seaweed didn't stop this little girl from creating a fabulous sand castle.

It was only an afternoon, really, but when I drove home last night I felt as though I'd had a little holiday.