Port Fairy is a small coastal town on the Moyne River.
It’s famous for having the largest folk festival in Australia and is held every Labor Day long weekend. We had just missed it unfortunately.
We arrived late afternoon due to the many picturesque lookouts along The Great Ocean Road. After setting up we went to check out the town and get a few supplies.
Port Fairy is known for its beautiful historical buildings.
Our sunny and warm weather had come to an end. It was a cold and rainy night so we decided to stay in and watch the last couple of episodes of The Last of Us.
The next day we had planned to ride but it was overcast with showers so we went back to Warrnambool to get a few things we couldn’t get in Port Fairy. It was still wet and cold when we returned so it was a perfect afternoon for a pub lunch and to do a few chores.
The following morning the weather had improved and so we had a perfect day to go for a ride and explore more of Port Fairy. There were great walking and bike trails along the coast and along the river. We rode past some beautiful beaches.
We went for a ride around Griffith Island. It was a walking track so there was a bit of walking across sand and rocks.
The island is a conservation area a colony shearwaters also known as mutton birds. We learned that it was the time of the year when the babies were in the nests waiting for the parents to return to feed them. The parents spend the day out on the ocean searching for food. We didn’t see or hear any babies but the rookery was huge.
It was a beautiful day to enjoy another pub lunch but this time we could go in the beer garden because it was a much warmer day.
We’d spied a Chinese Restaurant and thought it would be a typical country town Chinese restaurant meal. How wrong we were!! It was the worst Chinese I have ever had. We should have read the TripAdvisor reviews. It had a 2 1/2 rating with reviews of terrible and awful.
We left the following morning for a long leg to Murray Bridge. At the South Australian border crossing we had to dump some oranges and lovely tomatoes. It wasn’t the first time we’d been caught with prohibited food stuffs.
We travelled through the Coonawarra wine region and saw many familiar wineries on the way, along with sheep and cattle farms, and large plantation pine forests.
Steve was fighting with the wind most of the way to Murray Bridge, as there was a heat wave hitting the state and strong north westerly winds. Ironically it was quite cool where we were.
Our next stop was a caravan park was on the Murray River.
The river was very full due to the run off that was coming down from the north. A house next to the park had sand bags either ready or left from the recent flooding.
The park also had a marina for house boats. Many were moored but we were thinking it was also where people would moor with their boats for the night like a caravan park.
The next day we jumped on the bikes and rode into town. There was a multicultural festival which was a nice surprise. We enjoyed some yummy food and stayed to watch a couple of the acts.
The local indigenous Ngarrindjeri people performed two dances. The woman who lead the dances was great. We were thought she might have been a teacher because her explanation of the songs and dancing was fantastic. They asked anyone who wanted to learn the dances to come an join in after and her instructions were like she was teaching a group of kids the dance moves. She said that they had ‘good listening skills’ and gave lots of positive reinforcement. I was waiting for her to get out some stickers. She was very talented. She wrote the music and lyrics and choreographed the dance.
We went to explore the rest of the town. We rode down to the Murray River, and across the original Murray Bridge that is the namesake of the town. Built in 1879, the town was called Edwards crossing at the time before being renamed to Murray Bridge in 1924.
Everyone must have been at the festival because it was very quiet. It was another great ride to earn our afternoon wines and sausage rolls. (I’ve started a trend of a coffee and a sausage roll on the way out of towns.)
It was a lovely stop in Murray Bridge and also a good place to stock up before heading outback.