Wilsons Promontory

Wilsons Promontory is a granite peninsula hanging off the southern edge of the Victorian mainland, and Tidal River, near its middle, is the only settlement, a campground with a store and not much else. The beaches here are unusual: Squeaky Beach is fine quartz sand that actually squeaks underfoot, and Whisky Bay and Norman Beach are backed by rounded orange-lichened boulders. Mount Oberon rises behind the campground, and the track up it, a steady climb on a management road, ends at a summit looking over the whole peninsula and the islands scattered south. Longer routes run to Sealers Cove and into the southern wilderness. Wombats and kangaroos graze around the campground at dusk, largely indifferent to people.

History

Koori people lived on the promontory at least 6,500 years before Europeans came, eating from the sea as the middens on the west coast show, and it appears in the Bollum-Baukan, Loo-errn and Tiddalik stories; it is held to be home of Loo-errn, spirit ancestor of the Brataualung clan. George Bass, the first European to see it, in January 1798, at first took it for Furneaux's Land, and Governor Hunter named it, on the recommendation of Bass and Flinders, after Flinders' friend Thomas Wilson of London. Sealers worked the area in the 19th century and shore whalers from at least 1837, a public campaign through the 1880s and 1890s won it protection as a national park from 1898, and until a road was finished in the 1930s it could be reached only by boat (Wikipedia, Wilsons Promontory).

Highlights

• Squeaky Beach - fine quartz sand that squeaks underfoot, framed by granite boulders.
• Mount Oberon summit - a steady climb to a view over the peninsula and offshore islands.
• Sealers Cove - a long forest and boardwalk walk to a remote east-coast beach.
• Wildlife at Tidal River - wombats, kangaroos and rosellas around the campground at dusk.

When to go

November to April gives the warmest weather, though the water stays cold and the wind can be strong at any time. Camping at Tidal River over summer and Easter is allocated by ballot months ahead. Outside peak season the park is far quieter, and the walks are more comfortable in cool, still autumn weather.

Before you go

Facilities are deliberately minimal, with one small store, no fuel and patchy phone coverage. The weather comes off the Southern Ocean and can shut down a day quickly. Accommodation is limited enough that summer visits require planning months out. Parts of the park have been closed by fire and storm damage in the past, sometimes for long stretches.

Nearby

Foster and the Gippsland coast are to the north, with Phillip Island reachable to the west.

Key facts