Yesterday was dominated by rain and cold temperatures. We ventured out in the morning to the shops but returned to the shelter of the caravan before lunch and spent the day tucked up inside. I spent most of the day on the computer dealing with administration matters while dinner slow cooked in the crock pot. It was one of those kind of days and we were glad we had had such lovely days last week when we were travelling from Phillips Island to Wilsons Prom.
Overnight there were more heavy showers and we woke to 6 degrees centigrade inside the caravan, fortunately forewarned and under a mountain of bedclothes. The electric heater soon solved the problem with the cold, but did remind us that we are totally reliant on electricity for ambient temperature control; we booked a further night here at the caravan park.
Soon after nine we were down in the commercial area of Morwell walking the streets to find what it had to offer. Most shopping is now done in the modern Mid Valley Shopping Centre, however the banks and government agencies are still located in the older part of town. We browsed the real estate windows and found house prices to be considerably lower than elsewhere; interesting when Morwell is well situated for travelling through to Melbourne, down to the coast or north to the alps. I purchased a blizzard jacket or more correctly a jacket with a “Blizzard” manufacturer’s label, and now will have no further excuse to lament being cold, although I suspect I have written these words before, even somewhere in this blog.
We then made our way up to the Powerworks Energy Technology Centre to join a tour. Again Chris’s Senior Card came in handy however even at full price, the tour is excellent value and very interesting.
The Latrobe Valley contains one of the world’s largest coal deposits and nearly 90% of Australia’s brown coal reserves. If the current extraction rates were to remain the same, there is enough to last between 300 and 800 years; the first estimation per the tourist brochure, the second as per our tour guide. However China and India are currently eyeing up the deposits and praying for an inventor to come up with a way to transport brown coal from here to there. Brown coal is very combustible, even at 30 degrees hence the proximity of the power stations to the mines here in the Latrobe Valley.
In the meantime, the mined coal is fed directly into the furnaces of the four power stations providing about 87% of the state’s electricity; Morwell Power Station commissioned in 1958, Hazelwood Power Station in 1964, Loy Yang A in 1984, Loy Yang B in 1983 and Yallourn W Power Station in 1973.
We boarded a small passenger van with six other tourists, one a small boy who decided he was a better travel companion for me than my own husband, and drove to the Loy Yang Australia’s largest open cut mine. This mine is 180 metres deep and about five kilometres in length and three wide. Four bucket-wheel excavators operate in the mine, three of which are longer that the MCG playing surface.
From there we were taken in to the power station and proceeded up to the nineteenth floor from where we had wonderful views back over the mine and beyond. Back down several floors we viewed the huge turbines and were given an excellent lesson on the mechanics of electricity generation.
We returned back to Powerworks after having been given an excellent tour of well over two hours. Needless to say it was well after 1 pm and we were famished, so we drove to the Immigration Park in Morwell, ate our cut lunch and then wandered over to the wall of immigrant names. Great effort and expense has been made here and I am sure it all helps to give the residents here a real sense of belonging, however for us it did not impress greatly.
The Latrobe Regional Art Gallery is situated right on the edge of the CBD. We retraced our route and parked at the edge of the town’s well maintained and very pretty rose gardens. Entrance to the art gallery is free as so often with these regional art galleries. We wandered about the gallery to view the exhibitions; a rather weird collection of work, titled Prince of Hearts by Josephine Jakobi, investigating the fascination some girls develop for horses, a photographic collection titled Time Machine by Sue Ford , a collection of Mel-Rose ceramics created in the 1930s and 1940s, another titled Black Paintings by Mary Tonkin, and finally the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, a collection of Australian landscape paintings by significant artists including Eugene von Guerard, Louis Buvelot and Samuel Gill. We enjoyed most of the gallery although the equine symbols left us rather disturbed and neither of us was greatly moved by the Toby Jugs, ashtrays and vases.
Chris expressed a desire to explore the Hazelwood Cooling Pondage, which unsurprisingly is situated close to the Hazelwood Power Station. The lake covers an area of 480 hectares and provides leisure facilities to the public by way of fishing, yachting, swimming and all other related activities. There is a memorial on the side of the lake to the fifty one returned World War I servicemen who were allotted the land now under the lake, for farming. They must have been small holdings, but then dairying does not require too much land, or did not then. I was curious to find out how warm the lake was, whether I could be coerced into taking a plunge; however it was barely tepid, nowhere near warm enough.
We drove on around the southern end of the lake passing through the town of Churchill, the building of which commenced in 1965 as a service town to the Hazelwood Power Station. This power station is still operating but under threat of closing, with the cloud of emissions trading, pollution and all related nasties. Whether it is better to upgrade to a cleaner plant or to close; these are the questions.
Arriving back at camp, we debated whether to extend another day and take on the suggestions of the tour guide to explore countryside south of here, without resolve. We were also delighted to catch up with my parents and Kit and his family including a very alert little baby Aurelia.
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