Around the bay in a day

The weather over the last few days has been sunny and our waterways have been sparkling. As per yesterday's post, we were down by the river for a stroll. Today and on Tuesday however, we headed away from the river, to that other water source in which Geelong takes so much pride - Corio Bay.
Since my last post on this topic, I can say that the bike lane linking the Barwon with the Bay is complete and gets regular use.

The Esplanade, Eastern Beach

Today the fine weather was showing signs of drawing to a close so it was warm and windy. Well, actually, at Eastern Beach it was blowing a gale and I was very glad it wasn't 9am Saturday morning when I would have been running into that blast!
None-the-less it wasn't too unpleasant and the view was as spectacular as always. Of course, with the co-incidence of school holidays and a temperature increase of a few degrees, it seemed like we were jostling for space with half of Geelong. And the powers that be have certainly done a great job of creating a world class public open space.

The Geelong skyline from Western Beach

On Tuesday however, in search of new running routes and with perfect riding weather we grabbed the bikes and headed around to the less-publicised side of the bay. This was not the first time we'd been in this direction. Every Saturday  I run part of the way to Rippleside with Geelong Runners and somewhat less frequently we take the kids to the playground in the park as we did last week.

Boats moored at Western Beach

On one previous occasion as described in my post from last year, we followed the trail on and off road right around the foreshore, through the industrial northern suburbs of Geelong to the banks of Hovell's Creek and then onwards to Lara. On Tuesday we retraced our steps. This time I was looking at the route not only as a cycling path, but also as a potential running track.
Most people would know the path which runs from Limeburner's Point on the east to Rippleside on the west, with its views towards the You Yangs and Jan Mitchell's internationally famous bollards (a concept which I think could readily be extended to the banks of the Barwon).

Bollards at Western Beach

From this point however, things became less obvious. The track disappeared and a short section of onroad travel between Rippleside and St Helen's was necessary.
Once there however, we came across the following residents enjoying the weater and the low tide:

Pied Oystercatchers at St Helen's Beach

Eleven-armed Sea Star

I had not to this point met a Pied Oystercatcher, nor an Eleven-armed Sea Star (yes, this is the correct term as they are not technically fish and yes, there were eleven arms in this case - feel free to count them!), although I believe the former can be found at Barwon Heads. The views here were equally as panoramic as earlier sections and the track good, until that was, we reached the amassed bulk of Geelong's industrial sector.
At this point we were required to navigate a few back streets and semi-trailers before we picked up the bike path once again beside Corio Quay Road. Sadly, not much has changed since last year and several parts of the route were more overgrown with weeds and less appealing than they were over a year ago which is disappointing to say the least. There was still not the slightest indication of where any of this section of the trail lead or where connections needed to be made. Were these issues to be addressed, this could be an interesting and informative ride through Geelong's industrial heartland.

Piles of wood chips at Corio Quay

Of course, I am far from the first person to have this idea. In 2005, a bold plan was put forward by local historian Ferg Hamilton to create a continuous walking/cycling track from the Geelong Waterfront to Lara, but despite support and lobbying by all levels of government, no progress has been made - a point of which we were recently reminded in a short article published by the Independent last month.


Looking across Limeburner's Bay towards Point Henry

But back to the point! The track once it returns to the foreshore past Shell is excellent and the views of this lesser-used side of the bay are no less impressive than from the east. We paused for lunch (and a discussion on the metabolic needs of distance runners) at the beginning of the Hovell's Creek Trail.
Back on the bikes we headed up the creek. I would like to be able to say that Hovell's Creek is somehow connected to the Barwon and thereby provide a little more relevance to this post, however this is not the case as Hovell's Creek rises in the foothills of the Brisbane Ranges and the You Yangs before flowing directly into Corio Bay at Limeburner's Bay.

Mangroves lining the banks of Hovell's Creek

However, there are some similarities between the mouth of the Barwon and that of Hovell's Creek, the most notable of which are the mangroves which line the banks of both waterways at the mouth. Likewise, each has a raised boardwalk which enables close access without damaging these fragile environments.
In the case of Hovell's Creek, it was only on this second trip that we discovered the boardwalk. From it, we were able to get up close and personal with the creek, the mangroves and any number of White-fronted Chats which at one stage looked as if they were sprouting from the mangroves. They were accompanied completely unseen, by an endless chorus of Little Grass Birds as well as a few swans and high overhead, a Black-shouldered Kite.

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Boardwalk extending into the mangroves at Hovell's Creek

It is also worth noting, that like the wetlands around Lake Connewarre, those near the mouth of Hovell's Creek and Lime Burner's Bay have been listed as an international Ramsar site, thus highlighting their environmental signficance.
By this point in our ride, time was of the essence, so suffice to say that once again we rode as far as the Princes Freeway, looked up the hill in the direction of Lara, paid a quick visit to the monument to Hume and Hovell which stands nearby and then headed for home at a somewhat less leisurely pace the outward journey.
On returning home, I think I calculated the entire distance from Lara to Limeburner's Point below the Eastern Gardens as somewhere between about 18.5km and 19.5km depending on the exact route. Not a bad distance for a run and with some stunning views along the way, but I am yet to decide how keen I am on sharing road space with semi-trailers while I'm running.
One way around the problem however, may be provided if plans I have seen mentioned in the paper go ahead. This would involve the addition of a section of track extending the current Ted Wilson trail beside the Ring Road to connect at some point with the trail at the foreshore leading out to Lara.
I might also add that this is just on point at which the Ring Road trail comes close to the various sections of track around the bay and where a connection could be made. As I believe I have mentioned before, the Weir Deppler Park at the end of the Cowie's Creek Trail is only a matter of 800 metres from the end of the Tom McKean Linear Trail running over to Fyansford via the old train line and some 600 metres in a direct line from the Corio Quay track which we used on our ride to Lara on Tuesday. So near and yet so far...

Boats, birds and bauxite

Point Henry wetlands and Alcoa pier

Finding a connection between this blog post and the Barwon River will be drawing a long bow indeed, however having discovered yet another hidden wetland in the region (it must be the month for it!) it was too hard to resist the temptation to write something about it.
This time, I headed out to the tip of Point Henry on the edge of Corio Bay. The views from here are sweeping: the You Yangs to the north, Corio Bay away to the left, Portarlington and Clifton Springs to the west. Behind are the buildings of Alcoa's aluminium smelter and stretching out into the water just around the tip of the point is the pier. Built to receive material for processing at the smelter, it is over a kilometre in length. The plant itself was built in 1963 and currently produces about 190,000 tons of aluminium per year for both local and Asian markets.

Part of the Alcoa plant with the wetlands in the foreground

Most surprisingly however, are the wetlands. Located on the land below Alcoa at the tip of Point Henry, these partly natural, partly constructed wetlands are home to the usual array of plant, bird and animal life including a variety of endangered and threatened species. The wetlands have been developed by Alcoa who own the land, in conjunction with Greening Australia. They include both saline and freshwater wetlands fed primarily by rain water and by some recycled water from Alcoa and controlled by a series of mini-weirs.
The "Moolapio" project as it is known also incorporates much of the surrounding land, including not only the foreshore, wetlands and smelter site, but also farmland.The whole is part of an innovative grasslands regeneration program which if successful, may change the way revegetation is managed across the country. It is also intended that the site be used for community education, scientific research, plant propagation and seed storage, providing a valuable resource for other regeneration projects in the region and beyond.

weir controlling water levels in the wetlands

Point Henry however, was not always the industrial wasteland it appears to many to be today. In the earliest days of European settlement, Point Henry was the first point of contact for those arriving in Geelong. The sandbar which blocked the mouth of Corio Bay prevented large vessels from entering, so it was at Point Henry that these ships unloaded their passengers.
As a result, a thriving tourist industry also developed here, with the 'California Tea Gardens' opening its doors in  October 1849. This name was an acknowledgement of the number of people leaving the district and traveling to the Californian goldfields to try their luck. It was not long however, be for the tide turned and waves of gold seekers were arriving at Point Henry on their way to the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo in the early 1850s.
During this period, Point Henry also became a popular destination for tourist boats, with steamers running back and forth across the bay from Melbourne, bringing holidaymakers for a day at the beach. This state of affairs continued until the 1880s when the opening of the Hopetoun Channel allowed for the passage of larger vessels directly into the port of Geelong.

View of Point Henry Wetlands and Alcoa's pier

Following the demise of the tourist trade, Point Henry remained a signal station for incoming shipping whilst the surrounding land continued to be used for farming purposes. That noted Geelong resident James Harrison, inventor of refrigeration, founder of the Geelong Advertiser and one-time resident beside the Barwon River (I knew I'd find a connection) also held a block of land at Point Henry where he lived with his third wife and children in a small cottage. At the time of his death in 1893, he was planning to make soda on the site.
Another important early industry at Point Henry was the Cheetham Salt Works, established by Richard Cheetham - an English industrial chemist - in 1888. Today, the salt works form part of Alcoa's wetlands project whilst the company itself is now part of a multi-national operation with interests in Australia, Japan, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Including the saltworks, Alcoa currently own around 500 hectares of land around the smelter at Point Henry and continue to work with environmental groups and the community to regenerate the surrounding land.

A Scot on the rocks

James Harrison

There is one notable Geelong citizen who had strong ties to the Barwon River whom I have not yet mentioned in detail in any of my previous posts.
That person was James Harrison, founder of the Geelong Advertiser and the first person in the world to devise a method of making ice and he did this at Rocky Point, overlooking the river in Newtown.
Harrison was born in Scotland in 1816 and trained as a printer's apprentice in Glasgow, followed by a stint working in London before emigrating to Sydney in 1837. By 1839 he was in Melbourne and working with John Pascoe Fawkner, from whom he bought an old printing press. On 21st November, 1840, the first edition of the Geelong Advertiser was published and by 1842, Harrison along with John Scamble had bought out Fawkner. It was not long however, before Harrison became the sole proprietor, making the Advertiser successful on more than just a local level. It was his paper which was first to break the news of the discovery of gold at Clunes in 1850 and he also used it as a vehicle to agitate for the rights of squatters.
Nor was this his only project and it can be seen that his name was also associated with several of the earliest maps of Geelong, magazines and other publications, both locally and in NSW.  He was also active in local politics, serving as a councilor and in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, espousing progressive policies and maintaining a strongly humanitarian approach throughout his life.

Plaque at Rocky Point

However, it was his work in the printing industry which led to his eventually discovering a means of commercial refrigeration. Whilst using ether to clean the movable characters used to set type, he noticed that the metal became cold as the ether evaporated. It was this observation which led him in 1851 to develop the ether-vapour compression refrigeration system. His first mechanical ice-maker was built at Rocky Point in 1851 and then a machine capable of producing commercial quantities of ice (3,000kg per day) in 1854.
Over the next two decades, he twice attempted experiments aimed at shipping cold or frozen meat to London. Neither was successful and each ended in financial ruin, forcing him to turn back to journalism as editor and then columnist at the Melbourne Age to re-establish his finances.

James Harrison Bridge from the north bank

In 1892, after nearly two decades living in England and promoting his refrigeration techniques,  he returned to Geelong where he lived at Point Henry with his third wife and a number of children. He died there the following year and was buried at the Eastern Cemetery. Interestingly, his grave sits only a few metres away from that of his contemporary and fellow pioneer - Foster Fyans.
Whilst Harrison did not benefit financially in any great way from his pioneering work on ice-making, his contribution laid the foundations for the development of modern refrigeration. Recognition of this achievement came in 1990 when the newly completed bridge over the Barwon was named the James Harrison Bridge in his honour.

Plaque on the grave of James Harrison at the
Eastern Cemetery

The bridge - actually a pair of two-lane bridges -  is a concrete cantilever construction with box-girder sections on the south side of the river. It was built between 1988 and 1990, extending La Trobe Terrace and taking traffic from the Princes Highway off busy Moorabool Street and easing congestion through Belmont.

However, continued housing development south of the Barwon lead to significant congestion on this section of the highway and it was not until the opening of the long-awaited Geelong Ring Road in December 2008 that the problem was - at least in part - solved.

Grave of James Harrison at the Eastern Cemetery

Some sources report that a further tribute to James Harrison is planned in the form of a museum at Rocky Point where he conducted those first ice-making experiments on land leased from Ebenezer Davies, a local tannery worker. However, there does not seem to have been much progress of late and one recent report suggests that the project may not go ahead.