Warrnambool Day 2

Today we had a day of exploring Warrnambool. We first went to the Fletcher Jones property

The Fletcher Jones Factory and Gardens were established in 1948 by David Fletcher Jones in Warrnambool. His "Modern New Decentralised Garden Factory" was a result of growing demand and advanced views of employee satisfaction and engagement. The company became renowned not only for the quality of its clothing - an iconic Australian brand - but also for Fletcher Jones' progressive approach to employer/employee relations and an innovative shareholding scheme.

The 40 metre high water tower was built for fire protection and as a booster system in 1967. The tower's massive concrete foundations extend through the building and the elevated steel tripod and steel spherical tank tower over the complex.

Fletcher Jones established an attractive ornamental garden setting for his employees. Work commenced in 1949 and the gardens were extended to the west in 1951. The gardens quickly became popular among employees, local residents and tourists. The highly manicured landscape consists of flower beds, lawn, rockeries, pergolas, a sunken garden and pond and several large floral baskets.

We also browsed through some shops of Warrnambool before having some lunch and then going to the Art Gallery. This beautiful porcelain stork was on display amongst the art works.

We walked along the break wall and beaches.

The first beach was McGennans looking towards the break wall.

The walk along the break wall gave us views over Stingray Bay.

Our walk over the pedestrian bridge took us close to Middle Island in early 1999 there was an active Little Penguin colony on Middle Island Warrnambool however as a result of fox attacks and human interference over a number of years the recorded population decreased from 800 to less than 10 penguins, with no breeding pairs found in the 2005 counts.

Things had to change and a local farmer came up with the idea of using Maremma guardian dogs to protect the bird colonies on Middle Island.

Since the introduction of Maremmas to the island there has been no recorded fox attacks and numbers are slowly recovering, and most importantly, breeding birds have returned, to an estimated 180 penguins in 2013.

Middle Island

This mural depicts various scenes from Warrnambool’s history, from its original indigenous inhabitants through to the Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Classic and some of our city’s historic buildings.