BEACHCOMBERS-JOURNAL

NINETY MILE BEACH - AUSTRALIA Ninety Mile Beach, Victoria, Australia "the second longest beach in the world" LOCATION Ninety Mile Beach is in Australia down on the south eastern coast of Victoria State. From Melbourne the beach is 160 miles to the east. The length of the beach of course is all in the name, but for those who like accuracy, 94 miles . It is an unbroken stretch of sand running from McLoughlins in the south to the Lakes Entrance in the north. OUR VISIT My wife and I first visited Australia back in 2012, flying into Sydney from London. It took me a few days to get over the jetlag (something I didn’t plan for), after which we hired a car for a few weeks with a view to exploring the coast down towards Melbourne. We based ourselves in a motel in Sale for a few days which is about 19 miles from the beach. On the first day there we drove to Seaspray , a small coastal town built on the edge of Ninety Mile Beach . Seaspray is a relaxing seaside town separated from the ...

THE BASS ROCK NORTH BERWICK, SCOTLAND Bass Rock - view from Canty Bay "The Bass Rock on the Firth of Forth - the curious white island!" LOCATION The Bass Rock is a small rocky island in the Firth of Forth estuary on the east coast of Scotland. It is located 1 mile offshore and about 3 miles northeast of the East Lothian town of North Berwick . I have tried twice to photograph it; neither visit was a total success. I have had to contend with either misty light rain or a severe gale. But this is the nature of the territory on this north east coast; it’s totally exposed to the elements and the North Sea. GEOLOGY Bass Rock is a volcanic plug . It formed inside the lava vent of a volcano some 300 million years ago (Carboniferous Period). The big numbers in geology never cease to impress me, especially when compared to our own short lives. When the structure of the rock was examined it was found to have large crystals, indicating that the molten rock ( lava ) from which the island ...