Cape Bridgewater is an interesting and underrated destination in the far west of Victoria near the South Australian border.

I stopped there for a couple of hours today on the way from Mount Gambier to Port Fairy.

My first stop though was at Nelson on the Glenelg River. I had been there before and I've always been fascinated by the shacks that dot the riverbank.

There are hundreds of these shacks, especially on the South Australian part of the river at Donovans. Most of them are not connected to utilities and the Government has required the owners and lease holders to install wastewater treatment facilities to keep them.

Next stop was Cape Bridgewater, which I had also visited with the family in 2008-10 when we were living at Mount Gambier. It's got one of the most beautiful beaches in the area.

This time I explored more than previously when I had a car load of kids saying: "Are we there yet?"

A few kilometres past the town is the Petrified Forest, so named because it resembles fossilised trees.

The formation is actually a collection of hollow tubes of limestone called "solution pipes", eroded by millions of years of rainfall. The process starts when water gathers in a shallow pan of sand and seeps downwards dissolving the limestone.

The mineral-saturated water then cements the sand, forming hard, trunk-shaped pipes.

Most pipes around Cape Bridgewater are one to three metres high, although some are as high as 20 metres.

There are blowholes nearby as well, but they were not as impressive as the ones I saw in Samoa, more like waves crashing against rocks.

The coastline is rugged and beautiful. Although it was a mild day for June, I needed the jumper here because of a howling wind coming straight off the Southern Ocean.

Cape Bridgewater is on the 262km Great South West Walk, and I would love to traverse sections of this one day. Signs pointed to a seal colony further along the coast.

A good thing about exploring in winter is there are not many people around. When I got to the car park for the Petrified Forest, mine was the only vehicle there.

Likewise, there weren't many people at the delightful Bridgewater Bay Cafe, where I enjoyed coffee and a fish burger with uninterrupted beach views.

Cape Bridgewater is about 20km from Portland, where I filled up with fuel and bought supplies before heading to my next accommodation in Port Fairy.

Unfortunately, the Princes Highway in that area is like a goat track and full of pot holes. There were three road crews over 70km, patching things up, when really a total reseal is needed. It's appalling how Victoria's country roads have been neglected over the past 20 years.