Day 12 St Leonard’s to Torquay

Said goodbye to Wayne

and headed out of St Leonard’s

Stopped off at the pier on the way out

Seas were very rough , splashing over the end of the pier. Fishermen there were packing up

Drove along beside Lower Buff Reserve with the ocean beside the pathway

We decided to go for a walk along the Ramsay Heritage listed Coastal Woodland Walk seeing as it was right where we were and sounded interesting

We decided that we would only do the shorter walk

Most enjoyable walk

So many of the pretty white coastal tea tree with its sweet aroma

We went crazy with taking photos, as all the little dots on my AllTrails tracking map highlights

I used the app ‘PictureThis’ to confirm the flowers identity

Bill was able to take lots of closeups such as this grass head with the superior lens on his phone

Not only were there a great variety of plants, a lot of them flowering there was a diverse range of bird sounds, predominantly wattle bird. Unfortunately they kept moving on as we got close so I didn’t manage a photo

An information board along the way

and a rest stop

Having walked through a heavily wooded area the path opened out into a wetland

With very different vegetation

This plaque explains the importance and relevance of this area being listed and preserved as heritage

A well built boardwalk over the wetland providing good views of the wet landscape

I heard and saw something in the bushes here

and was lucky enough to see this blue wren

and get a good photo of it

We decided against proceeding to the Two Bays Lookout as we would not have had time

So we took the path back along the beach

although a lot of the walk was still on a path through grasses

there were some areas of the beach where the sea was far enough out to enable walking on it

and we had it all to ourselves

This is one of the areas that we needed to go back onto the path

We still had views of the ocean from the path

Back onto the beach near the end where there were a few jellyfish

Back to the car and van

This is my all trails tracking where all the dots are where I took photos!!

on the road again after our fabulous walk

Pleasing to see these signs on the roadside

We have noticed a few of these signs around and have certainly seen cyclists. This is obviously an area conducive to cycling. We made a decision not to bring our bikes on this trip. We felt that the amount of times that we would have used them did not warrant the hinderance of bringing them

Onto the main route out

Turned off to take a back route

Heading for the lighthouse

Passed lots of Olive trees. Obviously a good olive growing region

A weird road junction, looks like to preserve this section

Views down to the ocean here

Heading for Barwon Heads and Torquay

Stopped off at Grants Lookout along the way

More wildflowers

Steps down to the walkway

Views both directions

Pretty flowers

Info about Grants Lookout Tower

The directional finder

Views out to the ocean

Very windy and cold on the hill

Info boards around the little walk we went on at the top of the hill

On the road again

We decided to pull in here at the Ocean Grove Surf club for a bite to eat seeing as it was lunch time. We were fortunate that we got the last table for two inside as it was a bit cold and windy outside. We shared a mushroom pizza