Hit the hay

The Punchbowl in San Remo is renowned for its spectacular views, coastal walk and more tragically for lethal rock fishing.

But according to old time locals, the rocks near the end of Punchbowl Road are notorious for a quirk of history: a 40-year-old agricultural accident.

According to Phillip Island’s Mike Cleeland there is an old farming relic that fell from the cliff in the 1980s and smashed onto the rocks below.

“The story – as I understand it – is the machine was baling hay in the paddock above, and somehow became disconnected from the tractor and rolled downhill and over the edge, then landing in a heap at the bottom of the cliff,” Mike says.

“Apparently there were a couple of fishermen sitting there having their lunch about 20 minutes before the haybaler arrived on the scene.

“I can’t remember how I heard the story but I can’t think of a reason to doubt it, as I’m sure the haybaler didn’t float in there under its own steam.”

Mike – the education officer at Bunurong Coast Education – knows these rocks well, having searched them for decades for dinosaur fossils.

He found his first fossil around these rocks, which he says are known as the Haybaler, “the machine that gave its name to the fossil locality”.

Mike says his sister took this photo in the early 1990s and he’d like more information from any long-term locals who remember the incident.

“I know it looks like some kind of prehistoric lobster, but believe me it’s really a haybaler,” says Mike

“There’s almost nothing left of it now. Last time I went there in 2020 there was just a chunk of the engine block showing. The rest seems to have rusted away as a result of exposure to seawater.”

Mike says the baler was an old-fashioned one that produced square bales.

“If I ever get back there I’ll take a picture of what’s left of it, but it’s down the bottom of a big cliff at a pretty remote site.”