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.

Warrnambool Day 1

Today we left behind the Great Ocean Road and made our way to Warrnambool.

The word Warrnambool originates from the local Indigenous Australians name for a nearby volcanic cone. It is interpreted to mean many things including land between two rivers, two swamps or ample water.

A popular legend is that the first Europeans to discover Warrnambool were Cristovao de Mendonca and his crew who surveyed the coastline nearby and were marooned near the site of the present town as early as the 16th century, based on the unverified reports of local whaler's discovery of the wreck of a mahogany ship. The ship's provenance has been variously attributed to France, China, Spain and Portugal. There is no physical evidence to suggest that it ever existed.

The Lady Nelson under Lieutenant James Grant sailed along the coast in December 1800 and named several features, followed by Matthew Flinders in the Investigator and French explorer Nicholas Baudin, who recorded coastal landmarks, in 1802. The area was frequented by whalers early in the 19th century.

On our way to Warrnambool we called into the coast line where the Antares was wrecked. On a remote stretch of country road between Nirranda and Peterborough, is a key moment in Australia’s maritime history.

The Antares was the last of the tall ships to be destroyed off the south-west coast. In late 1914, after the beginning of the First World War, a young local man went one evening to fish near the Bay of Islands, west of Peterborough. He later arrived home hurriedly and in an agitated state declaring: "The Germans are coming!" His family laughed and disbelieved him. About a month later, local farmers were riding in the vicinity, checking on cattle. Phillip Le Couteur saw what he “thought was the hull of a ship below the cliffs.” He rode to Allansford and contacted police. The next day, two Constables and Phillip Le Couteur returned to the site, where they dug a trench near the top of the cliff and sank a log in it. To this they attached a rope, which they threw down the cliff face. Constable Stainsbury and Phillip Le Couteur then made the dangerous descent down the rope on the sheer cliff face. They found wreckage strewn around a small cove and a portion of a man's body under the cliffs. The hull of the ship could be seen about 300 metres out to sea. Some of the wreckage revealed the name Antares and the remains of the ship's dinghy bore the name Sutlej. During the next two weeks and with the help of the Warrnambool lifeboat and crew, two more bodies were found.

We then called into Murnane Bay named after the Murnane family, who farmed locally in the 19th century. Kevin could not resist another paddle in the ocean.

The next stop was at Childers Cove a beautiful small beach with a bluff crossing the western end of the beach. The beach is low and flat, with a shallow bay floor. It has a few reefs and one narrow sea stack just off the beach. A permanent rip drains out of the cove.The name comes from wreck of “The Children” in 1839 in which 17 perished.

We were then back on the road heading to Warrnambool.

Once in Warrnambool we called in to see Logan's Beach each year, roughly between late May and early October, Southern Right Whales return to their nursery at Logan's Beach to give birth and raise their calves. Just offshore, in clear view, the giant, gentle mothers and their giant children loll about and play, enjoying the shelter of Lady Bay. We are too early to see the whales however it is still a very lovely stretch of beach to view as the last of the ocean before we head inland to Mildura in a few days.

Port Campbell Day 4

Today we headed inland to see the local area. We drove through pastoral lands and arrived in Camperdown.

The Djargurd Wurrung people are the traditional Aboriginal people of the Camperdown area, who had lived in the area for tens of thousands of years as a semi-nomadic hunter gatherer society.

The first British settlers arrived in the area after 1835 to establish sheep runs. Although settlement was met with resistance by the local Aborigines, the town's history also records remarkable instances of mutual assistance and friendship between indigenous and settler peoples. Notable on this account is the family of David Fenton, the Scottish Presbyterian shepherd and drover who built the first house in Camperdown in 1853.

In 1883 Wombeetch Puuyuun (also known as Camperdown George) died at the age of 43 and was buried in a bog outside the bounds of Camperdown Cemetery. His friend, James Dawson was shocked at this burial upon his return from a trip to Scotland, and personally reburied Wombeetch in Camperdown Cemetery. He appealed for money to raise a monument, but with little public support, primarily funded the monument himself. The 7 metre obelisk was erected as a memorial to Wombeetch Puuyuun and the aborigines of the district, and has been described as being still inspiring today.

The town was surveyed in 1851 and named Camperdown after the Scottish naval hero Lord Viscount Adam Duncan the Earl of Camperdown. The first dwelling was erected on the site of the present Commercial Hotel in 1853 and the Post Office opened on 1 January 1854 replacing an earlier one in the area named Timboon. It became the service centre for the vast pastoral empires of the region. The Port Fairy railway line was opened in 1883, and later extended as part of the line to the southwest of the state.

By the mid 20th century Camperdown had emerged as a more diverse centre for dairy farming which drew on its rich volcanic soil, for woolgrowing and for produce processing industries. By the late 20th century the town had become a major centre for tourism because of its unspoiled 19th century architecture and as a gateway to the southern tourist attractions of the Otway Ranges, the Great Ocean Road and the 'Shipwreck Coast'. In more recent years, however, the drought in Australia in the 21st has affected Camperdown's dairy industry.

Throughout the whole town are these large avenues of elm trees between the dual carriageways of Manifold St and Tower Avenue, it gives such an appearance of stature and grandeur.

The town is renowned for its classic historical buildings. Central is the 31 m high gothic Manifold Clock Tower, built 1897. Among the many other classic buildings are the 1886-7 two storey Georgian style Court House, the 1863 two storey bluestone (granite) Post Office and Theatre Royal (1890).

The Leura Hotel was rebuilt in 1902, becoming known as the grandest and most comfortable hostelry in the west.

Camperdown lies within the 'Lakes and Craters' region, in the Kanawinka Global Geopark sitting at the foot of Mount Leura which together with nearby Mount Sugarloaf are part of a large extinct volcanic complex known as the "Leura Maar". To the immediate west are the deep volcanic crater lakes Bullen-Merri and Gnotuk.

Kanawinka means the Land of Tomorrow in the language of the indigenous Buandik people.

Lake Bullen-Merri is a brackish crater lake it has a maximum depth of 66 metres, with a clover leaf outline indicating that it was probably formed by two overlapping maar volcanoes.

Lake Gnotuk and Bullen Merri are twin lakes separated by a high saddle of land. The edges are surrounded by prominent scoria tuff rings, which slope down to form deep craters. Lake Gnotuk is hyper saline (more than twice the salinity of the sea).

At the eastern end of the Camperdown township there are Mounts Leura and Sugarloaf, volcanic scoria mounds. Mt. Leura has a lookout at the western end there is a botanic garden built in 1869.

Climb to the top of Mt Leura and Mt Sugarloaf and take in 360-degree views of the coastal ranges and rolling western plains. Volcanic activity has shaped much of the surrounding landscape, leaving cones, lakes and craters.

Mt Sugarloaf a very different looking mountain to Kevin's Mt Sugarloaf at home in Newcastle he so loves to walk up.

Red Rock features a cluster of over 40 eruption points concentrated in a 4 km by 3 km area just south of Alvie and several smaller eruption points just north of the town. The massive eruptions, which created the well-preserved formations of maars, tuff rings and scoria cones at Red Rock, is believed to have taken place between 6,000 and 12,000 years ago. The presence of iron gives Red Rock its distinctive colour. The volcanoes at Red Rock form a contrasting landscape to the otherwise flat countryside formed by earlier lava flows, which gave the western district its rich fertile soils of immense agricultural value.

There are 9 complete craters up to 75 metres deep, some which were filled with water, forming lakes such as Lake Purdiguluc, Lake Werowrap, Lake Gnalingurk and Lake Coragulac. Lake Purdiguluc has been formed by at least 5 coalescing eruption points. The Red Rock lakes have been dry since 1999, which may be a cyclic event or due to over-extraction of groundwater.

Today's bird was this bird soaring high.

Here we saw the livestock being hand fed due to the drought being experienced here in Victoria.