Western Victoria Australia - Mainly The Grampians

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We’ve just had a ten-day trip around Victoria visiting the Grampians, The Great Ocean Road and the Gold Mining district. Victoria is a smallish state of 227,000 Sq Kms, which is about a quarter the size of New South Wales. Its population is around five million compared with New South Wales’s seven million, because of its compact size it does have a much better road system with quite an extensive motorway system, in fact Victoria does most things better than any other state. At one stage we did consider retirement to one of the Melbourne suburbs, on selling our Sydney house we could have bought a mansion but decided in the end that we knew where everything is in Sydney, worked out well because we now have somewhere nice to visit.

On the way down, we decided to pop off the motorway and have a look at the town of Glenrowan where Ned Kelly made his last stand in June 1880. There are many different versions of the story but here’s one link http://www.glenrowan1880.com/ and there are plenty of others to be found. Roughly, he was a bushranger, the Australian version of a highwayman. The Police, known as State Troopers in those days hadn’t exactly followed procedures or the law and today would probably not have obtained a successful prosecution. The judge allowed half a day for the trial because the Melbourne Cup was to be run in the afternoon and he didn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun; he was found guilty by lunchtime and hung a few weeks later. Ned Kelly wasn’t too well organised either, he had plans to declare a republic but his main supporters were only the members of his gang together with a few locals.

In most Australian tourist towns they have a big something or other, there’s the big banana, the big potato, the big prawn and many others all reflecting the local industry or attraction; in the case of Glenrowan they had the Big Ned Kelly below.







This is the present day Glenrowan Hotel, the hotel where the siege was held was on the other side of the road and has been demolished to make way for a café. Many tourists think the siege was held in this hotel though, the locals don’t argue with them.





Although the line is still in use the Glenrowan Railway Station is long closed, the only point of significance about it is that a special train brought a squad of State Troopers here to break the siege and arrest Ned Kelly along with his gang. The train actually stopped a mile or so out of town.

Continuing our journey, we called into Bendigo for lunch, a lovely town with these tulips in the local park.








We also saw this bed of unusual flowers, much bigger than tulips but may be related, they had similar leaves.



Bendigo like Melbourne and Portland, all in Victoria still have trams, here’s an older one




Followed by a more modern version




On arrival in the Grampians, we based ourselves at the YHA Eco-hostel in Halls Gap. This hostel is connected to the national grid but manages to generate a net surplus of solar power, which results in them receiving a cheque each year from the local electricity company. Hot water is also generated by solar power and there seems to be plenty of it, the showers were piping hot all the time. They also collect rainwater, which is used in the laundry and recycle the shower water for flushing toilets. There is only a very small use of town water for drinking, cooking and the washroom.




The main entrance to the YHA, the building is constructed from some timber but mainly compressed clay slabs for insulation.




One the left are some of the solar hot water heaters and on the right the photo-voltaic panels, these will generate a maximum of 12.5 kilowatts, electricity is only used for lighting and cooking so most of the time there is a surplus that goes into the national grid.







Probably the most important part of any YHA, in this case two well laid out and equipped communal kitchens. People tend to meet here as they are cooking, exchange news and swap ideas about this and other areas. Left over food is recycled to the worm farm and to the chickens; usually there is a dish of fresh eggs available on a first come first served basis each morning.











Another useful meeting place, a large and bright dining area.




These are the dining room windows, you can see wallabies here as you eat your breakfast, there are also emus, possums and koalas in the area.







There are two lounges like this, each with a wood burning stove and one has Internet Terminals, Wifi was being fitted during our stay but was not ready before we left. There is also a TV lounge.

This is a really good hostel, we had a private room and used the shared bathrooms. There is also dormitory accommodation for those who want to keep the cost down. A selection of international visitors also made the visit very interesting.


There is some good walking in the Grampians among the basalt with plenty of fresh air and scenery, those who enjoy climbing big hills and talking to rocks would love it.




This is Mackenzie falls on the way to the Pinnacle Walk; it had rained the previous day so still had a fair bit of water.










The above show the typical scenery on the Pinnacle Walk, which climbs about 400 metres over two kilometres. Much of the walk is over tessellated rocks with some rocks jumping so it can be a bit challenging for some.





This is the final approach to the Pinnacle and is known as Silent Street. The view from the top is of Halls Gap Township and some farms, will not take up space here with the pictures.




Our next visit was to Portland near the Great Ocean Road. We had hoped to see the nesting grounds for a population of 6,000 gannets but the road is now closed to the public. Instead we visited the Petrified Forest and expected to see a few old fossilised trees instead we were absolutely amazed by them; we ended up walking around them for almost three hours. At one time, it was thought that advancing sand engulfed a coastal forest and caused the trees to fossilise. More recent thinking believes that they are produced by the action of chemicals, minerals, wind, rain, seeping water and that they were created purely by this action and trees were never involved. Various Internet sites suggest that the experts have not yet agreed on this one. Anyway, they are beautiful and here are just a few pictures of them.
















One other attraction in Portland is the cable tramway, in it's original form it was similar to the San Francisco Cable Cars. The system was restored by volunteers to operate as a tourist attraction. It still operates on the South Australian five feet gauge but instead of the original cable propulsion, concealed diesel engines have been installed in the trams. At the time of our visit the system was operating to their winter timetable, we were not aware of this and unfortunately missed seeing and taking pictures of the final tram for that day. Here is a link though to some pictures on the official site.

After restoration, this:




Became this:




Quite an achievement.




Our next stop was at the Enchanted Forest, this is actually a grove of Moonah trees. 200 years ago, vast areas were covered in these trees but much to their detriment the wood from them was found to have a very high calorific value. It was ideal to use in the manufacture of lime for both agricultural and building purposes, now there are just three small groves of these trees left, each one less than a couple of hectares.






















As we approached the coast, we could see that a local aluminium smelting company had been allowed to construct some scenic wonders for us to look at:












We did eventually manage to see the sea. This area is known as the Shipwreck Coast, problem during the early days of settlement was that the mariners knew where all the rocks were but they didn’t know where their boat was. If the ships chronometer was out by one second a day on the voyage from England it translated to an error of 40 miles at this end; there were no pilots in those days.







Guess what name Aussie imagination came up with for the following area?






Did you manage to pick it as “Flat Rock”? Imagine in the days of fairly small sailing ships in even a ten metre swell, they could be picked up and smashed to splinters on a rock like this, not much fun after a three month trip.


To gain a bit more knowledge of the Shipwreck Coast we later visited the Flagstaff Hill Museum at Warrnambool.





One of the first things that we saw was this notice describing the 227,000 vessels that brought 224 million tons of cargo to Australia in the 75 years leading up to WW1. Navigation would have improved by then but it was still a hazardous journey with many lives and vessels lost.

The Museum has been established on the original hill where the Flagstaff and the lighthouse were situated. Most of the buildings are originals from the area but seem to have been moved closer together. The lighthouse is still operational but now automatic, nowadays, along with the sextant; they are only used to double-check the GPS readings.




At the end of the tour, we were rather surprised to see the original left-handed bricklayers club actually open to the public, bet they’d hidden all the secrets though.











In the evening, we attended what was described as a sound and light show. It was in two parts with seating for less than half those attending for the first section. Later we moved outdoors, a fountain generated a screen of mist and moving pictures were projected onto this. There was very little new information; we had seen most of it during our day visit to the museum. The main problem was that the laser projector was shining into our eyes that became quite sore after a few minutes causing us to close them. The sound quality was quite poor. The daytime visit to the museum was good but we would not recommend the evening show.




One more very quick visit before leaving Warrnambool to the Hopkins Falls, not very big ones, 90 metres wide and 11 meters high with very little water at the moment due to the drought.





During October each year young unpigmented glass eels can be found swimming up this river, they will have travelled all the way from Vanuatu where they were born. We were a couple of weeks early but they are shy cautious creatures anyway and travel mainly at night. Here’s a description of their life cycle.





Over in the Gippsland of Victoria there is a giant earthworm, details can be found at http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/infosheets/10185.pdf, over here in the west there is a similar large worm that is generally around a metre long and about 2-3 Cms in diameter. I could not find much information on this one except that there are penalties for digging them up, seems they are useful to anglers for use as bait. The Gippsland version is also rather delicate and tends to die if handled incorrectly. The only evidence that I could find here was these wormholes.










Our next visit was to the museum at Sovereign Hill, similar to Beamish in UK this is a living museum based around an old mining town with many original buildings, a big staff and many volunteers. It is one of the best historical museums that we have seen anywhere.

Well start with a few general scenes in the main street of Sovereign Hill.



This is an original Cobb & Co Stage Coach.





This is more the horse drawn bus type of coach that would be used for short journeys.





Here we have a Trooper; they kept the peace in the colony before a formal Police Force was introduced.






This is the main street, much as it would have been in the gold mining days. Some building have been moved to the museum from other parts of the original town.







A folk music group, the chap on the right is playing a lagerphone, probably the only musical instrument invented by European settlers.






I think these soldiers could be marines but I’m not too sure.






Here we have a group of volunteers in costume of the day.








Some locally made items.





The original gold mine, this is open for conducted tours, unlike a coal mine there is no danger from gases, candles and naked flames could be used.






This craftsman worked in timber but sot sure if he was a cooper or a carpenter.





Here we have the blacksmith fitting a shoe to the horse.







My favourite, the toffee maker. This demonstration takes place behind glass because the toffees are produced for sale through the museum and nearby shops in local towns and villages. The original factory was owned by the Brown family and around 1995 the remaining two family members wanted to retire, they did this by giving all their equipment to the museum together with their recipes, they also trained the new staff to use it.





Here we have a gold ingot being poured; this happens about four times a day. Security is fairly high here because the gold used is worth more than $120,000.





This gentleman spent most of the day painting a single wheel, perfect job by the time he had finished.


Here are a few posters from the gold mining era.

















This is a fascinating but very noisy area. Most of the machinery is driven by steam, there are lots of things going up and down, round and round, reciprocating and generally making quite a racket.











The noisiest machine used for crushing ore.







Here we are at the Diggings or sometimes called the diggins.





A lot of the alluvial gold was mixed with a very hard yellow clay, this puddling machine was used to break it up causing the gold to fall to the bottom.





For a couple of dollars visitors can pan for gold. They seem to make sure that everyone gets a sliver.







This would be a good representation of the gold fields in their day.




The following shops probably made far more money than any of the miners, this has been the case all over the world; if they discover any new gold fields go in for selling shovels if you want to get rich.












Finishing off the visit to the museum with a few pictures of homes and other buildings.














The final museum picture is the ninepin bowling alley; ten-pin bowling arrived much later from the USA, the extra pin being added to get around a law that banned nine pin bowling on Sundays.


During this part of the trip we stayed at the YHA in Daylesford Springs, a lovely area that we will probably visit again meanwhile here are a few pictures around the local lake.

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Comments

[Dave White]

Great shots
There were some great photos there, most of the locations I have been to and some beaut memories returned. Dave www.glenrowan1880.com

[NigWar]

Many thanks Dave. That was a very enjoyable holiday with some very pleasant surprises. We enjoy travel in Oz just as much as overseas. Next one will be Kangaroo Island in March.