Victoria

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28 Feb - Melbourne to Ballarat

An early wake up call to disembark right on schedule (7am) with not much sleep, we sought out caffeine hits like crazed Tassie devil’s that stowed away on rumours of the quality coffee to be had in the “big city”. Not to be disappointed, an early opener café in Port Melbourne met all expectations - we had two!
Having already spent some long weeks in Melbourne, we decided to make a ‘B’ line to Ballarat. Got talked into (and convinced ourselves) to visit Sovereign Hill, which had won the best tourist attraction in Australia for the 5th successive year at the Tourism Awards only one week before - basically this is as good as it gets for Oz! They must have some photos of the Tourism Minister he wishes not to be made public. Being particularly gullible today, we also signed up for the multi million dollar, lightshow spectacular “Blood on the Southern Cross” - the story of the Eureka Stockade told with recorded voice tracks, pyrotechnics and lights on a miniature recreation of the goldfields. An overwhelmingly expensive experience that ultimately appeared gimmicky.
T

1 Mar - Avoca

An unplanned detour through the Pyrenees wine region had us slightly defer the Grampians (which recently suffered extensive bushfires) to drive up through Avoca where we visit 3 cellar doors: Blue Pyrenees; Mt Avoca and Summerville. BP has the Midnight Cuvee with its grapes picked through the night, the area’s Shiraz is lighter due to the cooler climate and the Merlots have surprising colour and structure. A little boozy after the tastings, we set camp at a free site rather conveniently located adjacent to the Summerville cellar door.
T

2-3 Mar - Grampians

Drove through Stawell (where the famous Stawell Gift is run at Easter) and turned into the Great Western Wine area, serendipitously stopping into Best’s cellar door: converted late 19th century stables fronting the original cellars with original redwood beams, wax lined concrete fermenting vats and handmade barrels over 100 years old. A friendly greeting, complimentary tour along with unpretentious, helpful wine tasting of great value cellar door wines and fortified made this one of the best vineyards we have visited. Best’s are known for their Shiraz from vines planted in 1887, a variety that can no longer be identified and is unique in the world (we were encouraged to taste this too). We did buy a cab-franc, late harvest Muscat, Chenin Blanc and fortified Muscat for the road.
The Vic Parks did not quite have the Grampian’s info so well presented as we became accustomed to from the Tasmanians. The aboriginal cultural centre was disappointing and did not offer the insights into koori culture as the Lonely Planet had described. Large areas of the park were closed due to the January bushfires in the central and South of the park (including the wonderlands). Most of the open walks were in the North. As it was 34 degrees we chose a caravan park with a pool near Halls Gap.
We drove to Mount William and walked to the summit for panoramic views of a scorched landscape in the sunset of a warm day.
Friday (3-Mar) drove to The Balconies lookout where we traced the destructive paths of fire fronts along the ridges and gullies in the valleys below us. Heading North we walked out to the painted caves of the Ngamandjidj Shelter (White Men) and the child’s hands painted at the Gulgurn Manja shelter just past Mount Zero. Taking the gravel road back toward Halls Creek through the Mount Difficult area gave us some idea at how quickly the Australian bush regenerates in a relatively short time (6 years) as it was burnt out in 1999.
T

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Photos

Soveriegn Hill
panning for gold

Grampians
the balconies