3 days at Koroit Victoria

Koroit is our next base for 3 nights.  This little town is just 16km sth west of Warrnambool and offers a quiet van park that suits us.  During the weekend just finished the town hosted The Irish Festival and from what we were told the town was abuzz with people and events all with an Irish theme.  The posters and flags were still up on Monday afternoon as we walked the main street.  Many of the shops were closed (guess they had to recover from the weekend).  Info stated that the original settlers were a family of Protestant Irish who identified the grazing and farming potential of the area.  This family then offered work and tenant farming to many of the Irish immigrants as they arrived at the docks.  There are again lovely bluestone buildings to be found along the street.  This stone was certainly plentiful back in the 1800’s and was a popular choice for construction.

Tower Hill crater

Koroit is situated on the back slopes of Tower Hill, a volcanic crater which has been re-vegetated and turned into a reserve with walkways, flora and fauna.  We visited the lookout and could see emus grazing around the water areas down below us.  The wind was quite cold and showers were a chance so we decided against taking the walk down to the bottom.  It seems there were quite a few volcanoes across this southern part of our continent from what we have seen the past few weeks.   

Warrnambool is only 16km from here so exploring this city will only be a short drive away.  This is to be Race Week in Warrnambool and there are many visitors to the town for this event featuring steeplechase races.  The shops along the main street have their windows decorated to support the theme of racing and we found out that Thursday is going to be a public holiday so just as well we will be heading off then on to our next ‘base’. 

After finding the Information Centre, based at Flagstaff Hill where there is a Maritime Museum and great display, we collect our local map and set off to explore.  We decided to head out of town and visit Allansford Cheese World where there is again a museum featuring many items from a local historic family along with various bits and pieces of farming equipment.  Allansford is also the home of the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory which has been in operation since 1888.  There is a free cheese tasting offered at Cheese World every half hour so this is a chance to try something ‘different’.  Those that know me and my ‘plain and non-adventurous’ approach to food would be proud.  Well there were about 10 different varieties (Garlic, chives, chilli etc) and I must admit I did not try them all but did about half.  I know my limits with spices etc.  Lawrie however did try each of them so we ended up buying three different flavours to take with us for nibbles along the track. 

Leaving Allansford we head north to Hopkins Falls on the Hopkins River.  

Hopkins Falls

In early summer there is an annual migration of eels that takes place when hundreds of tiny elvers can be seen fighting their way upstream.  This river finally meets the ocean at Warrnambool.  These falls are one of the widest in Australia (up to 30 metres) with a depth of 11 metres.  What must they look like after heavy rain?

Our trip into town to explore had us finding the Wollaston Suspension Bridge, built in 1890 across the Merri River to enable the landowner pastoralist to have easy access to his property.  The cables came from the Melbourne to Hawthorne tram service.  An early example of recycling?   We walked across the bridge and couldn’t help but admire the timber beams and the construction techniques that had been used all those years ago.

                                        Wollaston Suspension Bridge across the Merri River

Another ‘must’ visit in town is the Fletcher Jones gardens on the edge of town beside the highway.  We had visited here in Sept 1996 on a trip to WA and I remember the beautiful gardens that we had seen.  The factory had been built in 1948 but is now no longer in use.  We were fortunate to speak to one of the gardeners and he told us that when the factory closed the gardens were taken over by the council however the gardens had been ‘let go’.  Now under the control of the National Trust they are worked by groups of unemployed folks in a training scheme under the direction of this gentleman.  Being late Autumn they are currently in the process of doing a lot of replanting ready for spring so there were quite a few bare plots.  The supervisor told us that originally the garden area had held a quarry and Sir Fletcher Jones had filled it with any old car wrecks or machinery he could find.  They then dumped sand from the beach on top of the wrecks and the gardens were then developed on top of that.  Over the years those old wrecks have started to rust and breakdown so areas of the garden are now ‘sinking’ so of course, that area is now called ‘The Sunken Garden’. 

Our three days in Koroit have come to an end and we head off a little further west tomorrow to explore a little more of this western area of Victoria.