South Gippsland

Wilsons Promontory is the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland, and arriving at Tidal River after the long drive from Melbourne feels like reaching the edge of the known world. The Prom, as Victorians call it, is a granite peninsula of extraordinary beauty — empty beaches on two sides, exposed to the full force of Bass Strait swells on the south, and covered in dense coastal heath and mountain gum forest all the way to the lighthouse at South Point.

The camping at Tidal River is among the most popular in Victoria, booking out twelve months in advance for the Christmas period. But walk five kilometres in any direction from the campground and the crowds dissolve. Norman Beach at first light is genuinely otherworldly — granite boulders worn smooth, the swell coming from Antarctica and not a building in sight. The Prom's wildlife is abundant: wombats wander through the campground at dusk with complete indifference.

Behind the Prom, South Gippsland rolls north in a landscape of intensely green dairy hills, hedge-lined lanes and small agricultural towns that produce exceptional milk, cheese and butter. Korumburra and Leongatha hold the agricultural heart of the region. Fish Creek has reinvented itself as a food tourism destination. The Coal Creek Heritage Village preserves a working nineteenth-century mining town for anyone interested in the region's other history.