11 September 2013 - Warrnambool Holiday Village, Warrnambool, Victoria

There was further rain during the night, alas none in the western suburbs of Sydney to give relief to the valiant efforts of the fire-fighters! We did not rush away because we only planned to travel about one hundred kilometres from Hamilton today. In fact most of our recent trips have not been much more since we crossed the border back into Victoria.

The first thirty kilometres eastwards to Penshurst passed through the very small but charming village of Tarrington, first established by German settlers who arrived in 1853 and quickly established themselves as farmers. It was no surprise to learn that Tarrington was not the first name given the settlement; its sounds so un-German. Originally known as Hochkirch, the area is now becoming a well-known “pinot noir” grape producing area. We noted the rather grand Lutheran church, its spire standing tall over the oldest continuous Lutheran School in Australia, established in 1853, although the present primary school was built in 1926.

As we approached Penshurst, yet another much reduced rural centre, we noted the farming area all about covered with volcanic stones thrown up from the nearby Mount Rouse, yet another now extinct volcano. Here in Penshurst can be found the Volcanoes Discovery Centre, which if the advertising brochure is to be believed, offers an excellent educational experience for those interested in the geological wonders of the region and the history of the people whose lives have been intertwined with this activity for thousands of years. Alas, the Centre is not open on Wednesdays.

While many of the old buildings are in great need of repair and titivation, the spring rain and fresh growth of the many trees and gardens helped to give this little town some charm. We stopped and bought a newspaper at the Takeaway-cum- Newsagent, a rather strange combination. Or perhaps not; we do like our fish and chips served in newspaper, don’t we?

Here we spent a moment reviewing our route, and decided to stay with Plan A, to head directly south, leaving the Hamilton Highway and proceeding on the pot-holed Penshurst-Warrnambool Road, passing to the east of land travelled through yesterday and from this angle, a far better view of the wind turbines seen from the road back to Macarthur from the Mt Eccles National Park.

I tried to count them and suggested to Chris there were in excess of fifty turbines lined up along for the many kilometres on our right, however later research proved that to be an enormous understatement.

The Macarthur Wind Farm, about sixteen kilometres east of Macarthur, made up of 140 3MW turbines, is currently the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere and represents an investment of approximately $1 billion. It has the capacity to generate enough energy to power the equivalent of approximately 220,000 average Victorian households. Construction took about two and a half years and the farm has been operational since late January 2013. It is a joint operation owned by AGL Energy Limited and Malakoff Corporation Berhad, the latter a Malaysian entity. Now that was worth finding out about!

We continued on, down though yet another charming settlement, this time Hawkesdale, which with Woolsthorpe, is the location of dairy farms owned and operated by my niece’s in-laws. Today with the grass, green and lush, and the dairy cows looking picture perfect, I could well imagine that Kiwi family happily farming in this region and well understand why any keen New Zealand farmers would find this area so attractive.

Soon we were passing through Koroit, another charming historic township where the Goulburn Murray dairy company makes its Devondale cheese. We stayed in this delightful settlement when we last came to call on Warrnambool and learned then that the original European settlers had been potato growers. I shall not bore you further here about Koroit, but simply say it was a pleasure to pass through it yet again.

Soon we arrived at Warrnambool, at the same time as a heavy rain shower. We drove past the camping ground, deciding it would do, but preferring to park somewhere else until the rain cleared. It soon did, we returned to the camp, which is situated right in the middle of town, set up and lunched on hot toasted sandwiches. Over coffee I telephoned my friend, Hilda, to arrange a date for the morrow. We are to call mid-morning and I am so looking forward to seeing her again.

Later we set out on foot downtown, calling in to a tyre place where we booked the landcruiser in for a tyre shuffle. Hopefully this will allay Chris’s annoyance with the road performance, frustrations which have been put down to poor roads, wind, mismatched tyres and anything else we can come up with. We looked for the Vodafone shop without success, finally learning at the Telstra shop that there was no such competition. At Hamilton I had discovered I had telephone reception and attempted to make a call. Alas I had limited money left on the phone, but enough to make a call. The system however would not allow me to even start the call and kept channelling me through to a recharge robot. Needless to say I was furious and ready to chew someone’s ear, so it is just as well for Vodafone that they have no representative here in Warrnambool.

Instead we called into the Art Gallery, which we had so enjoyed last trip through. Today was less satisfying, the selection from the permanent collection in the first gallery unlabelled, another exhibition with reference to wearable art, absolute rubbish, in our opinion, and yet another gallery exhibiting and explaining the conservation and restoration process of old or vandalised paintings, which was quite interesting. We would however encourage travellers to call by; mixed experiences suggest you just might strike it a positive one.

Heavier rain began soon after we returned and we were glad to settle in for the rest of the afternoon, reading of the on-going ruckus within the Australian Labor Party and the continuing saga of Assad and his chemical weapons. We had learned last night when speaking to my parents on Skype of similar problems with New Zealand’s Labour Party and the knife-edge match racing of Team New Zealand against the American Oracle Team. There is obviously something in the water.