I love Californian Redwoods. So when I saw that there was a small plantation of them in Australia I was so excited. My previous Redwood experience was in Rotorua, New Zealand.
Redwoods are the world’s tallest trees. They were planted in the Great Otway National Park in 1936 as an experiment. They have totally thrived here.
I find it so peaceful standing under these majestic trees. They are so straight and just keep going into the sky. They are a tree I can’t resist the urge to give a hug. The forest floor under Redwoods is also very different to anywhere else. It is always only filled with fallen Redwood leaves as nothing else seems to grow there. I personally find this a beautiful sight. Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon when we visited so I couldn’t spend hours with them. I would have also loved to have camped next to them but this was prohibited.
Quambatook on the Avoca river is childhood home of two of Australia’s music celebrities. John Williamson, a country and music star and Molly Meldrum, music entrepeneur, record producer and journalist. It’s hard to believe that not only did they attend the same small country school, but they attended at the same time. Both are celebrated in the Quambatook museum.
Peppercorn Trees lining the main street of Quambatook
John Williamson is my favourite Australian singer and he was the reason we went out of our way to visit this small dying country town. I am currently reading his book True Blue. In it he describes his inspiration for his songs. I hadn’t thought about it before. So I was surprised to learn that many were based on his home town and his childhood.
To explore this further we needed to to stay overnight to get into the museum. This allowed up to meet more locals and understand Quamtabook in its hey day.
OLD MAN EMU was his first hit
Local special events still held in Quambatook include Silo Cinema and Australian Tractor Pull Championships. They both sound like a lot of fun and bring people from everywhere to the town. When we visited Quambatook, they were setting up for a Silo Cinema that weekend and locals were certainly excited.
I think the thing I was impressed by the most about Quambatook the cremation of Sundeh Singh in the old cemetery in 1917. The town respected the Indian hawker so much that they wanted to give him his rite of cremation according to his religion. This novel ceremony using butter and kerosone was conducted by an out of town priest. After the large funeral pyre went out and the ashes were cooled they were transported back to India and scattered over the river Ganges.
Being an old gold mining town it was interesting to see the goal at the museum site. After gold mining the focus of the town changed to wheat farming. The area is still a large wheat supplier however changes to farming techniques has halved the size of the town.
Pioneer Park at St Arnaud, Victoria is full of history. It was created on the grounds of the old Lord Nelson Gold mine. And was designed by Edna Walling in 1947. At the time Edna was one of Australia’s most influential landscape designers and she did it for free. Because her friend asked her to. Today, Pioneer Park is the only public park remaining designed by Edna.
As part of her design 200 trees were planted from 36 species in a giant working bee of the town’s people. As I wondered around what remains of the park today I was surprised to see some very different trees. My favourites were the Atlas Cedar and the English Oak. Both looked magnificent and it was exciting to see tree types I had never seen before.
The Atlas Cedar (above) is native to Morocco and the English Oak below is said to be common in Australian parks but was a first for me.
Behind Pioneer Park is the remains of the old gold mine. Some of the locals tell us that the pool of water or pond was a place the children of the town swam. Whilst today the remains look highly polluted they say that when they were swimming there no-one got sick they just had a lot of fun and kept cool. The shelter in the photo below even states
“Presented to the children of St Arnaud by Frank Bray Esq in memory of Dr S.R.Bray accidently killed 1943.”
For us Pioneer Park was also another exciting place that we happened upon. We didn’t understand its true significance until we started wondering around.
During our trip every now and then something would surprise me. So I thought I’d put some of them together for today’s post.
Ruby Glass
I discovered Ruby glass at Cape Otway Lightstation. It is panes of red coloured glass that is put in lighthouses with a special light that shines lower out to sea. Because the Ruby glass doesn’t shine as far out to see as the usual light if a ship’s captain could see it they knew that they were too close to shore. Off Cape Otway the Ruby light would shine up to 6 kilometres out. This was because the reefs in many place went out to 4 kilometres. I was also interested that originally the ruby glass was made by adding gold to the glass mixture.
Pyrenees Pies
I couldn’t believe it when were walking down the street in Avoca, Victoria and saw the bakery’s menu. You could choose from crocodile, venison, emu, camel, kangaroo and buffalo pies as well as the usual range. If it had of been lunchtime I might have been tempted but I still am not sure which one I would have chosen.
Thong Tree
Walking along the Murray River at Barham we came across this thong tree. It was outside the caravan park but had no explanation. If we visit again we will bring a donation to the tree.
Bra Fence
In Mathoura on the Cobb and Co Highway a bra fence was commenced in 2018. The idea was to help educate people about breast cancer and fundraise for cancer treatment in the area. It was a huge success and now 4 years later they have added a prostate cancer awareness section with people adding underpants (jocks). Everyone is encourage to leave bras or jocks on the fence in memory of someone they know who has suffered cancer. There is a donation box.
Sand Sculpture
It was grey, overcast and rainy when I walked on Warrnambool beach to explore this vision further. Initially, I thought that it was a giant sandcastle. It wasn’t until I got close that I realized it was an amazing sand sculpture. The intricate detail was so creative. I don’t know why it was there. It was in pristine condition so my guess was it must have been done earlier that day.
During our recent holiday we meet many Australian animals. Some were cute and exciting while others scary. Either way it was fun to see them in their natural surroundings. The following grey kangaroos, echidna, and emus we found roaming around the picnic at Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve. We had a barbeque dinner there at about 7.30pm just as they began feeding for the day. The koalas you can read more about in my previous post Koalas in the Wild.
The emus were very brave and kept coming up to us as we were eating our meal. Fortunately they didn’t steal any of our food but we still kept our guard up until they went back into the bush from whence they had came.
This echidna was huge. He sudden revealed himself out of the litter on the ground and wandered up the hill. As we got closer to get a photo he was scared and went into hiding again. He was the biggest echidna I have seen and the only one in the bush. I have seen small ones on the side of the road before.
These black wallabies were a real surprise to find. We were walking around Griffith Island that breeds mutton birds during the summer and they suddenly popped up to see what was going on. They kept their distance and we couldn’t get closer to them than the paths allowed. They were very cute and inquisitive.
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This Bearded Dragon suddenly appeared under my feet in a park in St Arnaud. Luckily I have a bad habit of looking at the ground as I walk or I may have walked on him. I will admit he did scare me so on my way back to the car I took the long way around.
Fortunately we didn’t see see any snakes on our travels. But as it was the end of summer when we traveled we were very aware of where we were. While snakes themselves are scary, Australia also has a large number of the world’s most venomous and they live in the areas were traveling in.
The kangaroos probably eastern grey were in a mob. It was 0630 on the first day of our holiday just off the side of our camp. When my husband first saw them we thought that they were logs in the paddock. But then as the sun rose, they moved. I walked through the grass on our side of the fence to get a better look. They looked at me like I was putting on a show.
The following kookaburras were fun to get close to. The first one was at Echuca and the second one was above our camp for the night at Teddy’s Lookout.
Maremarra dogs are guardians. They love to protect. In Warrnambool they spend the summer on Middle Island protecting the Little Penguins from foxes during their breeding season. Known as the Maremma Penguin project it was a world first. And A huge success.
Flagstaff Hill is also the home of old retired Maremma dogs. They were so cute. The dogs are a great surprise in amongst all the history of the museum. Their purpose apart from supporting the dogs is to help educate tourists of the Little Penguins.
This journey is brought to life in the Australian movie Oddball. It tells the story of how a local chicken farmer, Swampy Marsh eventually persuaded the local council to allow his dog to help. His Maremma guarded his chickens from foxes so he was convinced that Oddball could use these skills to save the Little Penguins. It is a very funny movie.
Loch Ard Gorge is on the Great Ocean Road. It is a beautiful rugged piece of coastline. A sandy beach cove surrounded by high sheer cliffs with hidden caves. It is on Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast.
In 1878 it was the site of the areas most famous shipwreck, The Loch Ard. After the Loch Ard crashed into the outer island it broke up. The tide then brought debris, treasures, bodies and surprisingly 2 survivors into the gorge. The male survivor, Tom heard Eva calling for help and he went to rescue her. He pulled her onto the beach. He then somehow scaled the sheer cliffs to get help. For us, it was difficult enough climbing down the stairs to get into the gorge. So, I have no idea how he did it.
Standing in the gorge itself I was overwhelmed it’s beauty and how dwarfed I felt. It was so peaceful looking out from the gorge out to sea through the heads. I would have loved to have explored the caves had the tide been low.
It was from Loch Ard Gorge that the beautiful Loch Ard Peacock was recovered. The history of the Loch Ard shipwreck is well documented at Flagstaff Hill museum.
I think my favourite part of our recent holidays was seeing koalas in the wild. While koalas are an Australian marsupial most people only see them in zoos or koala parks. There habitat is very limited because they are very fussy about the types of gum leaves they eat.
We were lucky enough to see koalas on two occasions. The first was at Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve in Victoria. A family pointed out two koalas to us at the very top of some gum trees. They were sleeping but we all so excited to see them. I think the last time I saw a koala out in nature was before I could vote. In other words over 40 years ago.
Our second koala sighting was a real surprise. It was in New South Wales at Narrandra. As we hadn’t planned to stop off here we hadn’t researched the town. If we had we would have known that the town is is working hard to breed koalas in the wild. It also has special protect environments for them. We were lucky enough to accidentally camp at one of these places. As it was in the early evening the were up and about moving around eating leaves. This was very special and something I had never seen before. I took a few videos so I hope you can see them. Both koalas were in separate trees. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did. Sharing koala sightings whilst on the road is a great way to start to get to know others.
During our visit to Aarat we explored J ward. When it was first built in 1859, it was the old goal. In 1886 the goal closed and the next year it became a ward of the Aradale lunatic asylum for the criminally insane. For my husband and I this was very interesting because of our jobs. I am a mental health nurse trained 41 years ago and hubby was a crime lawyer prior to retirement.
The guides who run the tours are volunteers, part of a group called the Friends of J Ward. They are interested in the history of the ward and many had worked in it. Our guide had been a psychiatric nurse there and told personal stories of those admitted. For me personally the museum gave a great understanding of the changes to psychiatry Dr Dax brought to Victoria especially relating to how patients were treated and cared for. He implemented many ideas that are classified as best practise today.
The front gates to the old goal. This very solid gate holds a door within a door. It is very large.
On the internal walls of the courtyard over 130 years ago a prisoner painted the old sailing ship. To help preserve it it has been restored to its original condition. This artwork now features on many creative works attached to J Ward.
This scene shows the set up for an early version of ECT ( electroconvulsive therapy). The treatment is still used today and may at times be the treatment of choice for depression. The procedure however has changed greatly over the years.
The above photos show the early ways of suicide prevention and self harm management. The blanket is very thick and cannot be ripped.
As well as the ship painted in the courtyard there are also several carvings. We were told they were carved by the patients of the J ward and had special meaning.
I love the above box. It was made by hand from by a very clever deaf and dumb patient. The photo shows several handmade items.
Whilst initially opened as a temporary solution solution to the criminally insane problem at the time, J Ward remained in use for over a century. It was closed in 1991. This was 10 years after I had started working in psychiatry.
One of the things I love doing on our recent holiday was watching the sunrise. I would frequently look at the time for sunrise and get up just before. Fortunately, because of Day Light Savings time sunrise wasn’t until 0700 so my sleep wasn’t really impacted. Below is a mix of the sunrise I was rewarded with.
The other great thing about sunrise in the country was the birds came to life. The cacophony they made was amazing. I love it so much I made a recording of it but unfortunately I am unable to share it through WordPress.
