Silo art Photo 2021/03/14

The end of the same silos. These silos were crying out for art because the side and end are easily visible from the main road. I have recorded more silo art on a previous page. Photo 2021/03/14 Home Top Index A screen in front of the Coonalpyn public toilets Click on the image to see in higher resolution. Use return to come back. Photo 2021/03/14

Vineyards line both sides of the highway in the Padthaway area north of Naracoorte, but unlike Mid-North South Australia, which is terribly over-cleared, quite a few big gum trees have been left. We found that this continued through much of western Victoria. Photo 2021/03/14

Victoria COVID-19 Home Top Index We did this trip in March 2021, a year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. In South Australia, where we had been for most of our lives and all of the previous year, checking into all shops, cafes, restaurants, supermarkets was routine. QR codes were almost universal, and where there was no QR code check-in there was always a sheet of paper for people to write their contact details. In Victoria we were surprised to find this all far more lackadaisical, many places had no QR code, some had neither QR code nor a manual check-in. In some places there was a QR code for checking in, but it was not recognised by the check-in app. This was all particularly surprising since Victoria was hit with a far worse 'second wave' of the pandemic than any other Australian state; you'd expect them to take it more seriously than other states. Apsley area The farmers and graziers of southeastern South Australia and southwestern Victoria have left scattered big gum trees. This makes the landscape much more attractive than Mid-North SA, and it also provides shade for livestock, which should be considered a right in any civilised society if the climate is warm or hot. Photo 2021/03/15

Dr Who has got lost! Seen in a paddock in the middle of nowhere near Apsley. We travelled eastward from Naracoorte, where we stayed overnight, through Apsley to Edenhope, Natimuk and Mount Arapalise to the Grampians. Photo 2021/03/15

Endenhope

This beautiful mural was in Edenhope. It is unfortunate that the framework of the shelter in front of it partly obscured the view. Photo 2021/03/15

Natimuk and Mount Arapiles The oddly named town of Natimuk is the closest settlement to Mount Arapiles. The town has several shops, a pub, a very interesting store that sells mahogany sculptures made in Java, and a nice little park. The bloke who runs Mahogany House said that his factory in Java employs about 40 people and that he also has several other shops around the country. We saw some very similar carvings at Beaufort several hundred kilometres to the east. The photo is of a sculpture in the park. Photo 2021/03/15

Mitre Peak, a prominent smaller outlier of Mount Arapiles. Home Top Index Photo 2021/03/15

Mitre Peak from my drone. Photo 2021/03/15

Home Top Index Another drone view; Mitre Peak in the foreground with Mount Arapiles in the distance. Photo 2021/03/15

Mount Arapiles is a very popular attraction for rock climbers, with rock faces like this one can see why. Photo 2021/03/15

Looking south toward Victoria Valley, Lake Mora-Mora in the distance. Much of the forests of the Grampians ware burned in intense and extensive bushfires of January 2014. We saw lingering signs of the fires in many places, but the bush had recovered very well. Photo 2021/03/15 Looking southwest from Reed's Lookout. Photo 2021/03/15

Grampians, Hall's Gap Statues of Indian dancers at The Spirit of Punjab Indian restaurant. The food and the service are excellent, there are many other statues in front of and to the side of the restaurant and if you sit out the back there's a nice view over a little lake with bird life on it. A number of the wildlife photos shown on this page were taken in Hall's Gap. Photo 2021/03/15 Home Top Index

On the walk up to Venus's baths Photo 2021/03/16

The creek that the trail follows from Hall's Gap to Venus Baths. Photo 2021/03/16 Home Top Index

Venus Baths Photo 2021/03/16

Grampians wildlife The amount of tame wildlife in the Hall's Gap area of the Grampians is exceptional. The cockatoos, ducks, currawongs, kangaroos and emus were particularly tame. The birds I managed to identify (or partly identify) included: emus, sulphur crested and gang gang cockatoos, crimson rosellas (race Adelaidae), grey currawongs, wood ducks, laughing kookaburra, magpies, wagtail, emus, crested pigeon, crow (or raven), New Holland honeyeater, long-billed corella, black duck (and another species), wren (species unknown), straw necked ibis, lapwing, a wattle bird (species unknown).

Mother and joey eastern grey kangaroos and a pair of sulphur-crested cockatoos. We saw a few black wallabies in the bush, they are less tame than the eastern greys and apparently don't go into Hall's Gap. Photo 2021/03/16

A group of emus could reliably be seen grazing in a cleared area to the north of the caravan park we stayed in near Lake Belfield. Photo 2021/03/16 Home Top Index

Long-billed corellas near the bridge in Hall's Gap. I don't recall seeing the long-billed species before (little corellas seem to be far more common). These seem to use their long bills to dig in the soil for food, while the common variety live of seeds that they find on the surface. Photo 2021/03/18

A kookaburra at the cafe area in Hall's Gap. The sulphur crested cockatoos, kookaburras and wood ducks were all very alert for anyone who was willing to share food with them (this was discouraged because it is not good for their health and causes a nuisance) or any food left on tables or dropped on the ground. Home Top Index Photo 2021/03/18

A lone blossom on a small Corria plant seen on a walk in the highlands. Photo 2021/03/17 Grand Canyon, Grampians The Grand Canyon is a deeply intrenched gorge in the Wonderland area of the Grampians not far from Hall's Gap. Shifting the great stone blocks into place for this path across the water course in the bottom of the Grand Canyon must have taken a lot of effort. Drill holes showing where the big stones had been split were visible in most of the pieces. Photo 2021/03/17 Many of the stone blocks shown in the photo above showed drill holes such as this. It would be interesting to know when this was done, how the holes were drilled (with a hammer and drill, or with a pneumatic drill) and whether explosives were used (either blasting powder or high-explosives) were used to split the rocks. We also saw drill holes in paving blocks in places around western Victoria. Photo 2021/03/17 Home Top Index

We did the Grand Canyon walk fairly early in the morning, so the sun was only catching some of the rock walls. Photo 2021/03/17

As mentioned elsewhere in these pages the sandstone of the Grampians is similar to that of the Flinders Ranges in some ways. Both show cross-bedding like that in the centre of this photo. Home Top Index The Grampians sandstones are of Devonian age, the same as the fossils of the Age of Fishes museum at Canowindra, NSW. I don't know of any fossils in the Grampian sandstones, but I haven't looked into the question. Photo 2021/03/17

Another view of the fascinating sandstone rock formations of the Grand Canyon. The tree in the right foreground is covered with the interestingly named snotty-gobble climber (Persoonia longifolia). Photo 2021/03/17

The Lakeview Lookout is one of the easier to reach in the Grampians, requiring only a walk of about a kilometre from the Sundial Carpark, which is only about a ten kilometre drive from Hall's Gap. As we were in the Grampians in Autumn there weren't as many plants flowering as there would have been in Spring, but this one was in flower. I don't know its identity. Photo 2021/03/17

There were also several species of Banksia flowering. I can't put a specific name to this one. Photo 2021/03/17 Home Top Index

A panorama from Lakeview Lookout, which is a walk of about a kilometre from Sundial Carpark. Photo 2021/03/

Looking north-east from Lakeview Lookout, Hall's Gap is in the area of the clearing in the middle distance. Photo 2021/03/17

Rain forrest garden by the lake in Ararat Photo 2021/03/19

Another view of the rainforest garden by the lake in Ararat. The garden was very attractive, but unfortunately it was suffering a little from neglect. The plastic webbing that protects the plants from the strong sunlight had been torn by the winds. Elsewhere in the gardens there were weeds which could be removed with only a few hours work by volunteers or council employees. This lack of community spirit or civic pride, seems to be common in Australia; it's a pity. Home Top Index Photo 2021/03/19

A family of wood ducks near the lake in Ararat. Photo 2021/03/20

Looking toward Mount Buangor from the outskirts of Ararat before sunrise. The mountain's silhouette from this direction looks like that of a volcano; there are extinct volcanoes in the area. (It is not listed in Wikipedia's list of volcanoes in Australia.) On another trip my wife and I visited and recorded a number of old volcanoes in SA and Victoria. Wikipedia has a list of the extinct volcanoes of Australia. Photo 2021/03/20

Ararat Wind Farm I strongly support the development of wind power. We must change from fossil fuels, particularly coal, to renewable energy if we are to limit climate change and give our kids a future that is not greatly inferior to the present. I have explained at some length on another page why any right-minded person should support wind power and other forms of renewable energy.

A drone photo; low-lying mist just before sunrise. Some of the turbines in the distance. Ararat Wind Farm has 75 turbines each of 3.2MW. Drone photo 2021/03/20

Mount Buangor (or Mt Cole?) from the same viewpoint; drone photo again. Drone photo 2021/03/20 Home Top Index

Sometimes when I go looking for drone photos of a wind farm the best images turn out to have few, if any, wind turbines in them. Low-lying mists can make for very attractive views from a drone. This photo shows why the first hour of daylight is often called 'the golden hour' by photographers. Drone photo 2021/03/20

Sunrise over ground-mist at Ararat Wind Farm Drone photo 2021/03/20

Some of the Ararat Wind Farm turbines at sunrise as seen from my drone. Photo 2021/03/15

Another of the Ararat Wind Farm turbines, later in the day. Drone photo 2021/03/20 Home Top Index

There is an attractive drive on a good unsealed road over Mount Cole. The forrest on the mountain is beautiful. Views over the surrounding land were very limited by the trees, the heavy smoke haze at the time we were there didn't help either. Photo 2021/03/20

Stockyard Hill Wind Farm

A drone photo of a few of the turbines of Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, which is south of Beaufort and east of Ararat. It is owned by Goldwind, a Chinese company; at the time of writing their website was well out of date. Home Top Index I contacted them and they promptly provided me with the following information: Number of turbines, 149; approximately 3.6MW each; total installed capacity, 530MW; hub height, 110m; maximum height reached by blades, 180m. At the time of writing this was one of the biggest wind farms in Australia in terms of number of turbines and installed capacity. The trees at the base of the turbines, I believe, are Eucalypt monoculture planting, probably E. glubulus (Tasmanian blue gums). Wind farms are compatible with many other forms of land use; unlike solar farms they do not cover much ground. Photo 2021/03/20

Flower beds of the botanic gardens, the Robert Clark Conservatory in the background. There was a begonia display in the Conservatory at the time of our visit, see below. Photo 2021/03/21

Begonias in the Conservatory in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. Ballarat botanical gardens are always worth a visit. They never fail to impress. Photo 2021/03/21 Home Top Index

Begonias in the Conservatory, showing something more of the Conservatory itself. My wife Denece with her hat in the foreground. Photo 2021/03/21

A beautiful pavilion in the botanic gardens. The woman in the foreground is a stranger. Photo 2021/03/21 Home Top Index

The edge of Lake Wendouree, adjacent to the Botanic Gardens. There were a couple of rainy days when we were in Ballarat, the tail end of the deluge that flooded the east coast of Australia further north. We stayed in a cabin in a caravan park rather than using our little tent-trailer. Photo 2021/03/21

At another part of the edge of Lake Wendouree the swans frequently cause problems for motorists. They seem to have no fear of the traffic and are quite content to stand in the road. While I was watching one motorist got out of his car and chased a swan off the road before getting back in and driving on. Photo 2021/03/22 Home Top Index

The art gallery in Ballarat is always worth visiting. We particularly like the more traditional paintings rather than the modern stuff. The Ballarat gallery had at least one Heysen. This was an exception - a modern painting that I particularly liked (perhaps it's my geological background); it was titled Shift and done in 2008 by Dale Cox. Photo 2021/03/22

Clunes We drove to Maryborough via Creswick and Clunes, spending a little time in each. A very good sculpture outside of a business in Clunes Photo 2021/03/23 Home Top Index

These gardens were some of the best looked after that we found on our holiday. There was hardly a weed to be seen and the lawns were immaculate; a credit to whoever is responsible. I am often disappointed to see gardens that could be beautiful being overrun by weeds due to a lack of community spirit or civic pride. Personally I am involved in looking after Gleeson Wetlands in Clare and Central Park in Crystal Brook and find the contribution to my community gives me great satisfaction. Photo 2021/03/23

Another part of Phillips Gardens, Maryborough Home Top Index

Lichen field, Maryborough Possibly the biggest field of lichen I've ever seen. This was in an extensive area near the Maryborough lookout tower that had obviously been thoroughly worked over for alluvial gold. Quite probably the lichen is here because the soil was entirely removed by the mining operations and lichen was the only thing that could survive on the shallow, stony substrate that remained. Photo 2021/03/24

A close-up of the lichen. The high definition version of this cropped image is at the full definition of the iPhone camera (most of the 'high-definition' images on this page have been reduced from 4032x3024 pixels to 2016x1512 pixels in the case of the iPhone camera, and by a similar proportion for the drone and Ixus). Click on the image to see the high definition version. Use back-arrow to return. The white object is a quartz pebble. Photo 2021/03/24

Home Top Index Box ironbark forrest stretching apparently to the horizon from the Maryborough lookout tower. As recorded in eGold - A Nation's Heritage most of this land would have been cleared during the gold mining era. In my home state, South Australia, almost all the land that is flat enough and well watered enough for agriculture has been cleared of trees. I asked why this land hadn't been cleared, the answer I got was that the gold mining had left it in a state that made agriculture impractical. I could imagine from the chaotic mined landscape and the lichen covered 'soil' around the lookout tower that this could be quite true. It will take many thousands of years for good productive soil to form again. Photo 2021/03/24

Three of the rock wells from ground level, my hat for scale. The Goldfields Guide tells us that the "Four holes have been excavated into the base of a large rock in a position which makes them a natural catchment for rainwater falling on the rock above. Three of the holes are joined together within the rock, creating one large cavity. The total holding capacity of these wells is 168 litres." It also tells us that the maximum depth is about 1.3m. Photo 2021/03/24 Home Top Index Wells and their origins in Australia Seeing these wells brought on a train of thought. Farmers and pastoralists in the past in Australia have relied very heavily on hand dug wells (over the last 70 or more years new wells have generally been drilled rather than dug). For several years I did surveys of wells in South Australia for the then Department of Mines. It is a subject with which I am familiar. Most wells, unlike these, intercept groundwater at greater depth. The assumption (at least my assumption) has always been that the wells that farmers and pastoralists used, usually about 1m by 1.6m in cross section, were dug by, or for, the early farmers and pastoralists themselves. But I wonder how many of them might at least have started with a well dug by Aborigines? I can well imagine an Aboriginal well being dug close to a water course being used by early settlers; many of the existing hand dug wells are close to water courses. The later well diggers may have deepened and expanded many wells started by First Nations people; the knowledge would since have been lost in at least most cases.

A drone view of the four rock wells This was one place that we weren't able to get to with our little Honda Jazz. More accurately, the road had too many muddy water-holes on it for us to risk getting bogged. So I walked 2.2km each way. Photo 2021/03/24

Rubbish from the roadside A sample of roadside rubbish that I have picked up. Note the high proportion of throw-away cups. Laziness, ignorance or apathy? At the Maryland Diner in Maryborough we ordered a couple of coffees. We made sure they had crockery cups before we ordered (we always do), we asked to 'drink here'. The girl brought out throwaway cups! We've had similar things happen elsewhere. Reusable cups are available in the cafe, but coffee is brought out in throwaway cups. Is it that people are too lazy to wash cups, too ignorant to be aware of the waste problem that is inundating Australia and the world, or are they simply apathetic - just don't care? And then people in businesses that regularly buy coffees every day have one of their staff bring their coffees in throwaway cups. They could use keep cups. I have spent many hours cleaning up roadside rubbish. One of the most common items I find is throwaway cups. There is an organisation called Responsible Cafes that discourage throwaway cups, and I've written a page on responsible cafes in my region (although it's out of date).

Castlemaine botanic gardens Castlemaine botanic gardens are well maintained and attractive. They would be improved if more of the trees were labelled. Photo 2021/03/26 Home Top Index

Another part of Castlemaine botanic gardens. Photo 2021/03/26

Castlemaine art gallery The Castlemaine art gallery was well worth a visit too. The skill that the Aborigines employed in making these glass spear points is very impressive. The collection of art was good for a small provincial city. Photo 2021/03/26

Maldon Caravan Park. There were no powered sites suitable for our tent trailer to set up (the caretaker said that the ground was too hard for tent pegs to be driven in) so we had to settle for an unpowered site. It was a very quiet place, and beautiful. Kangaroos were about the place night and morning. Home Top Index In both Ararat and Maryborough we found that the sandy soil tracked into the tent. Sand was far less of a problem in this caravan park, partly due, I think, to the leaf litter on the ground and partly due to the soil being less sandy. Photo 2021/03/25

Camping bases for tents The contrast in the ease with keeping our tent floor clean in Maldon to the sand that came in on our shoes at both Ararat and Maryborough got me thinking.   Our tent-trailer and the dirt base at Maryborough Caravan Park that was so troublesome. Providing a better base wouldn't be difficult. Of course lawn is the ideal base for a tent, but it is quickly killed if covered by a tent for much of the time as it will be in camping grounds where people tend to stay for several nights. Mulch from the control of roadside vegetation is often freely available (at least in SA), I suspect that a thin layer of mulch would make a good base for a tent site. Sawdust is also readily and cheaply available where there are saw mills. I suspect that it would make a good base that would not stick to shoes once it had packed down a bit. Some camping grounds put in place a layer of something like shade-cloth. Tent pegs can be driven through it and it largely stops sand from being picked up on shoes. I wonder why more camping ground owners aren't a bit creative and use some of these materials. I suspect there would be others too.

There were several of these Lillies blooming in Maldon Caravan Park. I don't know the species, nor whether they were native or not. Photo 2021/03/26

The old dragline; the dredge was adjacent, and is shown in the next photo. Photo 2021/03/26

The gold dredge in its pond. The amount of work involved in building a dam to flood enough area to be worth mining with this dredge would have been substantial. There is another, very different old abandoned gold dredge in El Dorado, New South Wales. Photo 2021/03/26 Home Top Index

It is difficult to get a good view of the Porcupine Flat dredge from the ground, so I used my drone to get this areal view. Unfortunately the very high contrast between the early sun light on the tree tops and the deep shade around the dredge made it a difficult photographic subject. For more information see the Maldon page on it. Photo 2021/03/26

Foraging corellas, western Victoria On our way toward home we stopped for a break and came across these foraging long-billed corellas. I'm not sure of the location, possibly Birchip. We also saw some long-billed corellas in the Grampians, I don't think I've seen them in South Australia. Photographed with a Canon Ixus 290, 2021/03/27

South Australia again Travelling Duck Cafe It was a Sunday. We left Murrayville in Victoria, crossed the border near Pinnaroo and were looking for a coffee by the time we got to Lameroo. There was nothing available - because it was Sunday. This place was quite unexpected and very welcome, in the middle of no-where near the tiny hamlet of Geranium. We were expecting to have to drive another 60km or so to Tailem Bend. They provided a nice coffee, and in crockery, not use-once-and-throw-away, cups. Home Top Index Photo 2021/03/28

St Kilda

In the healthy part of the St Kilda mangrove forrest. The high variation between the sunlit parts of the forrest and the deeply shaded sections were too great for the iPhone camera to cope well with. I was quite beautiful in this part of the forrest. Photo 2021/03/29

The boundary between the dead mangroves, mainly behind me, and the healthy mangroves, mainly in front of me. Photo 2021/03/29 Home Top Index

At the southern end of the Mangrove Trail, looking south; Torrens Island gas-fired power station in the distance. Note the healthy looking mangroves. The extensive shallow waters north of Adelaide make great kayaking. Dolphins are often seen. Photo 2021/03/29

The mangroves at St Kilda have suffered badly from the results of developments in the nearby salt pans. This drone photo shows the dead mangroves in the foreground and healthy mangroves stretching into the far distance in the background. Click on the image to see a high definition image of the more distant mangroves. Photo 2021/03/29

St Kilda beach and the Mangrove Trail area is surrounded by salt pans other than on the Gulf St Vincent side. This is a panorama showing the attractive contrast between the pink hyper-saline water, white salt, and blue sky. Photo 2021/03/29

Another drone photo, this time pointing further to the right than the image above. Again the dead mangroves can be seen in a strip just beyond the yacht basin. Home Top Index Adelaide's Outer Harbour is in the distance. Photo 2021/03/29