Alleluia! The sun is shining and it is warm enough to be set up outside under the awning! It was also pleasant enough this morning to walk in the nearby Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve. I have already made mention of the dormant volcano that we are camped beside; today we drove down into it and explored the extent of the parkland within.
The volcano erupted 32,000 years ago and subsequent archaeological discoveries included aboriginal artefacts which is further proof that these indigenous folk are truly that, indigenous in contrast to others who say they are across the water but actually were just boat people as most of us who came later. And, while you might argue that the aboriginal people did come across from a general Asian direction once upon a time ago, I do think 30,000 to 50,000 years does count for a genuine claim to being the original inhabitants. However I shall leave this subject here and now before I extend it further and jump on one of my favourite bandwagons.
The last volcanic activity here was just 7,000 years ago and the “nested maar” is one of the largest of its type in the world. The crater has an 11 kilometres circumference and is 3.2 kilometres across, the highest point on the eastern rim being 88 metres above the crater floor.
The park was declared Victoria’s first National Park way back in 1892, but follow up got lost in translation, and the land was variously spoiled with grazing and quarrying, rendering it all quite bare and devoid of wildlife by the 1930s. There is a copy of a lovely painting by Eugene von Guerard, whose exhibition we viewed in Ararat just days ago, of the crater and its lakes, hanging in the Information Centre in the park. I am sure he would have wept had he returned before the regeneration project was commenced in the 1960s. In fact it was that very painting which was used to identify the plants, native to the area, reintroduced and today, cover almost all the previous desecration.
As one leaves the main highway that connects Port Fairy with Warrnambool and starts to descend into the park, one cannot fail to be impressed by the ragged cliffs that form a decorative rim around the top of the main crater. Emus make one welcome and suggest there is much more to come.
We walked for an hour and three quarters, around and over the hills and lakes within the crater. It is all a bit like one of those babushka dolls; islands within lakes within islands within lakes. The total area within the park is 614 hectares (1,516 acres), including the five lakes. During our walk be came upon numerous emus, a rabbit and evidence that there were many more, a koala resting in a tree as active as the others we have seen before, a very large kangaroo, a black swamp wallaby, a copper headed snake, grey fantails, bush wrens, magpies, crows crying out like a pen full of recently weaned lambs, black swans and so much more. As we returned to the land cruiser through the picnic area, there were three emus up close and personal with a family of littlies. One emu was dead set on having a sandwich for lunch and quite aggressive toward the tot trying to eat it. Naturally he, the child, was quite distressed by the approaches of the emu. I suggested they clap their hands to chase him away. It worked and I felt like an old hand at giving bush advice to townies, for a while. Even before we had pulled out, I could hear the renewed cries of the child. Obviously there is more to bush skills that my brief advice.
We did learn one thing about emus there: it is the father emu who incubates the eggs and he who the chicks spend the first two years of their life with, so all previous comments about mother emu and chicks should be edited to "father" and chicks.
We also learnt that the gestation period for a kangaroo is 36 days but the joey then spends a further eleven months in the pouch.
On return to the camp, I popped a batch of scones in the oven for lunch which seemed to be a good idea for an overcast day. This sounds far more impressive than it really was. Yesterday, Hilda had suggested we pop back later in the day for scones and more coffee, which we had declined, however it made me think of the packet of instant scone mixture that was basking under the bed, purchased way back last year when I was inspired by Pauline whipping up a batch on a cold day in Macquarie Woods just out of Bathurst. Despite the use-by date of November last year, and the fact that I have yet to master the intricacies of baking in this oven, they were edible and Chris was kind enough to say he preferred them to bad bread. I have to say, I thought them a little musty but am willing to try again another day with a fresher box of mix.
I went off for a short walk around the block near the camp where there is a profusion of old churches while Chris watched the cricket, and now I am enjoying the fresh air and the sun which has since come out. A large caravan has just pulled up beside us so we are now hemmed in on both sides, a fact that does not please us a lot, however we are still very happy to be in this wonderfully affordable little caravan park.
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