Camperdown was suggested by the man at Tourist Info in Port Fairy – and it didn’t disappoint.
The area is littered with landforms resulting from volcanic activity. An island within a massive crater:
On the island we saw emus:
A magpie looking mightily p****d off (but don’t they always?):
I learnt two interesting facts about Eastern Grey Kangaroos:
- They live in a family group called a mob.
- Kangaroos and wallabies have excellent hearing. Watch how their ears move around like satellite dishes.
A koala sleeping in a tree, looking like a motorcycle passenger:
A family of black swans:
Not much wildlife out because it was too hot, but saw clear signs of activity, such as someone’s house:
The area is a “tuff-ring maar crater” dated at 20,000 – 30,000 years old (so fairly recent in geological terms). A maar crater forms when rising red-hot magma intersects buried ground water, and massive steam-driven explosions blow the surround rock high into the air. Powered rock (ash) falls back to form a low tuff-ring around a wide, flat crater.
In the evening, we headed to Mount Leura and the wonderfully-named “Mount Sugarloaf”, two of the more prominent “scoria cones”. Scoria cones form when, with the water source depleted, subsequent eruptions build up mounts of frothy lava, which are “nested” inside the wider crater. They were used by indigenous communities as signalling towers, lookouts for game and neighbouring people, and as landmarks to guide them home.
Wonderful views over the surrounding area:
Lake Purrembete and Mt Porndon – the latter is formed from lava flow of the Western Victorian Volcanic Plains and is called a “stony rise”:
As little as 1% of the original vegetation remains today as European settlers cleared it for grazing. Therefore, the “sony rises” are important conservation areas because they have suffered less disturbance to the original ecology.
Trees planted in lines – I think it’s to mark boundaries while also providing shade for livestock (which are numerous in this “dairy country”):
Butterfly with camouflaged underwings:
And towards the end of the evening, we were joined by this beautiful falcon (?):
Random other stuff from today:
Washing the car is great fun – 5 AUD gives you a set number of minutes to get it done, turning it into a game:
We’re in pine-tree country – acres upon acres growing in neat lines:
Lunch at local cafe with a telephone theme, the star attraction of which was this old wall-mounted number looking a little freaky with it’s bell eyes:
“For sale” signs are much better here, listing key features of the property:
Another example of houses growing outwards, not upwards:
Chimneys in the fields – not sure what they’re for:
Liquorice ice cream – and the resulting blue tongue!:
At the tourist information in Port Fairy, we were told about a nearby town that consistently beat its own records for the most rainfall. It was discovered that the man had been topping it up, so he could continue to get on the news!
And so many contenders for “sign of the day”, that I’ve decided to just show them all in a little montage: