We stayed near Warrnambool for a few days rest and explored the Shipwreck Coast before driving across the third largest volcanic plain in the world to spend our last couple of days in Australia exploring Melbourne.

Day 32 – Flagstaff Maritime Village and Logans Beach whale watching

We woke and the kids were keen to play with the farm children and the lamb.  Unfortunately the other kids seemed to be very shy and disappeared whenever ours went outside!  The lamb was seen, but they couldn’t seem to catch him outside ☹

We had a plan for the day anyway and headed out to the Flagstaff Maritime Village in Warrnambool nearby.  This place is a mock up of a small maritime town from the late 19th century with about 20 shops, including a doctors, a bank, sailmakers, blacksmiths and dressmakers.  The late 19th century was a period which saw hundreds of shipwrecks along this 120km of coastline.  There’s a museum about the Shipwreck coast, with stories and items from the numerous ships to be wrecked along here.  We were in time for the daily guided tour by a local volunteer, which I went on whilst the others explored the village. 

To get to the east coast of Melbourne from Europe boats had to sail down and around the Cape of Africa and then past this part of the shore, passing through the Bass Straight which was 70km wide.  That sounds a lot to fit a boat through, but when you consider the accuracy of the navigation equipment they were using, a slight miscalibration could put them hundreds of km off course after an 80 day journey.  If they were arriving in the dark or in fog you’d often realise you were off course too late.  Or make the wrong correction thinking you were at a different lighthouse. 

As the sailors general theory was that being able to swim just prolonged the inevitable many opted not to learn to swim and so if they went overboard they drowned! 

We came across the story of the Loch Ard again, and found out that the man that survived sailed back to Ireland a few months later and that boat shipwrecked on the way home!  He survived that and a third shipwreck later in his life!  Being able to swim certainly paid off for him!

My guide also told us about ‘the Mahogany Ship’ which is a shipwreck which was recorded as being seen many times by aboriginals and later settlers as it slowly rotted away.  Based on the descriptions it would seem that it was a Portuguese ship which would have been there hundreds of years before the Dutch.  So perhaps it was the Portuguese who discovered Australia instead… controversial!

The kids loved the mock village, where sensors detect you entering a house and start playing a character explaining what it would have been like for them. 

Add in the turkeys, chickens and llama’s, a pond, some war fortifications and cannons (never used), a couple of lighthouses and a lovely tea shop and this was a really great day out for all of us.  Not bad for about £25. 

After this we headed a few minutes down the coast to the Logan’s Beach Whale Watching Platform, which is meant to be a great place to see Southern Right Whales and their calves.  There are not many of these whales left.  They were hunted nearly to extinction as they were a favourite of the whalers (they float when killed hence the name ‘right’ whale), and, although now protected, their numbers have been slow to improve due to suspected continued whaling activity.  The population went down to less than 300 in the world in the 1920’s after 75% of them were wiped out between 1835 and 1845.  Supposedly you can see them close to the shore here, but we were at the tail end of the season and didn’t see any whales.  We saw something – some large rounded fins in the water which stayed up for a long time.  Pretty sure they were not dolphins or seals.  But Right Whales don’t have a dorsal fin.  It did look like flippers, but do they really hold their flippers out for a few minutes at a time?  And we didn’t see any other sign of them.  No idea!

Back to the farm slightly disappointed (think we’ve been spoiled by all our lucky whale sightings so far). 

Bird species seen: 161

Day 33 – Time for a chill out day

Today we were meant to go to Port Fairy, where there was a vintage fair on and there’s an island (which you can walk to over a bridge) where you can see Muttonbirds (Little Shearwaters) come onshore after sunset. 

None of us were feeling very enthused with that though and it was raining in the morning.  The kids really wanted to stay on the farm.  We decided to go after lunch for a few hours and to catch the Muttonbirds, but when the time came we were watching a film and no-one bothered to get up.  So we stayed in and enjoyed our luxurious surroundings and the large collection of DVD’s on hand.  They had super comfy sofas with reclining seats.  It’s the little things!

We did put the wellies they had leant us to go outside and wander the farm, but didn’t get very far before we decided to come home. The wellies were too big for some of us to walk in properly and the wind was cold.  The trouble with living on these plains is that there’s no shelter.

I think a lazy day was needed for all of us to recoup – we had forgotten what a day in front of the tele is.  I actually got bum ache from sitting all day! 

Bird species seen: 161

Day 34 – Tower Hill Nature Reserve and the AFL Final

After being lazy yesterday we got up and out promptly this morning for the Tower Hill Nature Reserve a short drive away.  Tower Hill is a dormant volcano crater which comes out of nowhere on the surrounding plains.  It’s an outer crater rim with a lake inside and a second series of craters inside creating an island.  Which then has it’s own crater lakes in it. 

This place is just off the main road along the ocean so was really busy!  It’s known as a great place to see koala’s with good reason – there was one at the start of the boardwalk and another right in the picnic area.  With a male emu and his chicks also there it was a great place to come and spot some local wildlife.  We started out down the boardwalk with everyone else before continuing along the lake edge where we lost everyone else – this seems to be a trend, most tourists seem unwilling to venture more than a km from the car!  Great for us as we like peace and quiet, and walking. 

We finished up on the trail to the last crater to erupt about 10,000 years ago.  A pleasant wander past reedbeds with lots of sightings of birds of prey, including a Brown Falcon and a Swamp Harrier 😊.

Back to the farm for a late lunch and to watch the AFL final.  As their national sport it seemed only right that we swot up on the rules and watch this final.  This is a MAJOR event here.  There’s an extra bank holiday on the Friday before and we were told that the shops would close and the whole country would come to a standstill whilst it was on!  A fast, entertaining game with lots of action and many goals, but very one sided unfortunately with Richmond Tigers dominating New South Wales by one of the biggest margins in many decades.  This is the sport over here, we’ve seen many Aussie Rules Football pitches, even out in small towns and not one single ‘English’ football pitch on our travels.  Chris’s verdict, ‘entertaining, but not as good as real football…’

Bird species seen: 165

Day 35 – Crossing the volcanic plain to Melbourne

After a full English (breakfast) we packed up and checked out of our farmhouse cottage.  After four nights we were all pretty ready to move on actually, which I think surprised us a little as we’d been so pleased at the thought of staying in one place for a while.  The kids are really excited about moving on to New Zealand so that might have something to do with their joy at moving on.  Evie is also keen to be back in a city, which was a surprise.  She’s fed up with walking and looking at trees and the sea.  Cities are more interesting places to walk apparently.

Based on this we had a slight change of plans when we hit our first stop and were promptly hit with another shower.  It had been meant to be a chance to see some volcanic landscapes, as today we were crossing the third largest volcanic plain in the world.  That sounds like there must be something to see there right?!  The reality was that 10-40,000 years is a lot of time so in reality you get miles of gently undulating plains, dotted with cows and farms with the occasional hill which is a volcano.  They are only a couple of hundred metres tall though so not particularly impressive. 

We drove past Lake Gnotuk and then on to Mount Leura at Camperdown.  After reading about how these particular craters were formed (an initial large explosion caused by the lava meeting groundwater and causing a massive steam explosion which deposits its debris in a wide circle, then the lava erupts from within and slowly causes a scotia cone to build.  Mount Sugarloaf here is an excellent example of this. 

After heading up to the viewpoint to look over the plain and the numerous crater lakes and volcano cones in the surroundings we could see a raincloud heading for us so turned and ran for the car.  So no photo’s – sorry!

Given Evie’s statement about wanting to walk around a city instead, we decided to scrap the walk and head for Melbourne instead.  We only have one day there after all so an extra evening would be good and give us the opportunity to see a bit more.

We headed off towards Melbourne winging it a bit as we seemed to have no mobile data.  After a while we decided it wasn’t just a lack of signal, we must have run out.  Thanks for the notifications Optus!  Chris topped up the phone using the links in the app but we still seemed to have none.  Perhaps it takes a few minutes to update?  We carried on and stopped in Colac at a park to eat our pasta salad and let the kids have a play. 

Still no data, in the end we stopped again to rebuy some data – seems we bought credit the first time instead in our rush.  Muppets.  At least we could find our way to our accommodation that evening now.  An address isn’t much use in a city with no map!

As we had the car for a few hours more we decided to skip the apartments for now and head to St Kilda on the waterfront first.  We weren’t sure what to expect here, it’s meant to be more of a ‘hip’ seafront with the Luna park, café’s etc.  After paying quite a bit to park, we walked around the Luna Park, which actually looked a lot of fun with the wooden rollercoaster around the edge which has the controller standing on it in the middle still!  The price for entry and unlimited rides was actually not too unreasonable, but as only Evie showed any sort of interest we gave it a miss. 

Next stop the seafront, where it was sunny but with a cold wind coming off the sea.  We strolled up the promenade and headed up the pier (as that’s what everyone else was doing) to find the little pavilion there and the Little Penguin colony.  We didn’t expect to see any as they go out and feed in the day, but they have built a walkway along the front of the rocks that they live in so that people can view them coming into shore.  We were a few hours too early to watch them return, but some had stayed in their burrows all day so we saw at least five amongst the rocks!  It was nice to be able to get a good view of these guys up close as we’d only seen dark blobs before!  Our rather uninspiring outing was suddenly worth it 😊

After checking out some kite surfing we headed back to the car to check into our apartment block.  A nice place on the 19th floor with a free pool and gym.  Chris had to take the car back to the airport that evening so having dropped us off he hit the road again.  Bye Sunny!

Bird species seen: 165

Day 36 – A day in Melbourne

Not the best start to the day.  We got up determined to use the gym and pool in the apartments but luckily decided to try checking in for our flights tomorrow morning before we went.  Good job really as seemingly I never booked them!  I was sure I had, but I could not find any record of payment, emails etc, and Jetstar had no record of us on the flight! Oh dear.  Have now double checked that I have booked all the rest and I have – this one’s just a blip but still – what an idiot!! 

The others had left me to it and headed for the pool for a swim whilst I booked some flight tickets for the next day.  This is officially the least time from booking a ticket to boarding a plane for me – less than 24 hours. 

After all this excitement (stress!) I needed to run so we put Melbourne on hold a little longer and all hit the gym together.  Pretty entertaining really with the kids trying the running and rowing machines (Aiden can’t reach the pedals on the bikes!). 

We finally left the apartment block at gone 11am and walked straight onto a tram at the stop opposite.  Melbourne have a great free tram network around the city centre and we were staying at the furthest out free stop 😊.  A few minutes later we were closer to the centre and got off to head to the Immigration Museum. 

By now it was midday and so we were feeling too hungry to head off into a museum.  The kids wanted lasagne and pizza so we looked up cheap Italian restaurants and found Vapiano’s, which was on our route to the museum.  Vapiano’s was a great find, fresh pasta made on site and cooked whilst you wait (literally in a couple of minutes).  At lunchtime they have a lot of deals so most our meals were only around £6.50 each for a decent portion.  Bargain!

Feeling suitably full, we headed for the museum.  Possibly the friendliest museum I’ve ever entered – all the staff were very happy and welcoming.  The main exhibitions here are around human migrations, the reasons and then focus on the details of how Australia was populated.  Before coming here I’d never had much reason to think about how Australia came to be populated, or realised how recently it had all happened.  In 2016 one in four Australians were not born in Australia.  We can believe this as we have met so many people who have moved here from other countries (mainly the UK and New Zealand).  But also, in our apartments in Melbourne 80% of the people we’ve seen have been of Asian descent.  Whilst in the early days Australia did everything it could to be colonised by white people, preferably British, there is now a very multicultural population. 

Chris and I really enjoyed these displays, whereas for the kids it was all a bit too detailed. They enjoyed the pretend entry interview and the temporary exhibits about tattoos and identity though. 

After this we crossed the river and walked along the Southbank of the Yarra river where there was a street performer setting up.  As we’d enjoyed the one we saw in Sydney so much we settled in to watch. He picked a child helper which this time wasn’t Aiden, until she wet herself (!?) and disappeared with her mum.  Reece, the performer, pointed at Evie as his next helper and Aiden ran on up.  Which was ok, as Evie would never want to do it!  So we had rather a sense of déjà vu as Aiden’s job was to pass knives up (he was asked if he wanted to have a go himself but this time declined!) and then throw an apple to him whilst he stood on top of a pole.  Aiden’s a good throw so it worked first time.  Once again Aiden got paid but was given strict instructions that that $5 was for him and that he shouldn’t put it back in the hat at the end. 

We followed the river down to the Alexander Park and Victoria Gardens, where we found a skate park with a café.   The skate park was big and had loads of people using it, of all ages which was nice for a Monday afternoon.  The café was run by two proper ‘skater dudes’ and served healthy snacks as well as the standards so we let Aiden spend his $5 on slushies for both of them as they were really cheap and 95% fruit juice 😊.  After watching the skaters for a bit we finished our loop of the park and crossed back over the river bridge past Flinders station and to St Paul’s Cathedral, which we popped our head into.  The cathedral was interesting as it’s the first time I’ve seen grey stone alternated with beige on the pillars and walls to give a striped effect.  Coupled with the dark wooden ceiling it was not what we’re used to in European Cathedrals.

One final trip two streets down at Hozier Lane.  This whole street has been covered in graffiti artworks, and I mean every space covered.  Some are like mural paintings, whilst others are simply tags.  Very interesting if rather packed!

We hopped back on the tram which dropped us off at our door, ready for packing and an early night as we’re all up at 5.30am for our flight. 

Thanks Australia, it’s been fun.  One country down, many to go!

Bird species seen: 165

Head back to our journey down the Great Ocean Road or read on for our conclusions and highlights of Australia (coming soon) or our onwards journey to New Zealand.