Warrnambool

On the way to Warrnambool we stopped at the Penshurst Volcano Centre – another discovery based entirely around deciding to drive around the town for a look – and another very well put together, community run centre.

After spending time looking through then volcanic history of the area we decided on a trip to the top of Mt Rouse on the way out of town, which turned out to be a little more of an adventure than we had originally intended. We climbed up to the top from the carpark and the kids had a wonderful time running about, then, as we went to wander down again Liz asked me to take some photo’s as she was having problems keeping the camera still in the wind.

By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs the kids were nowhere to be seen, so I guessed they had already made their way down to the carpark. With the rain starting to come in I ran down to let them into the car and bring it up to pick Liz up before she got wet (we had found that the turnaround at the foot of the stairs was just big enough for us to get the caravan around), however still no kids. I drove up to Liz and then set off down a walk trail thaqt leads around the Mt until it reaches Penshurst below as that was the only other possible place they could have gone, as the wind and rain picked up I decided that a brisk run might be in order. Eventually I reached a fork in the track with no idea which way they would have gone so started my way back up hoping they would have appeared by then. My trip up the Mt started at a brisk trot, slowed to a brisk walk and finished as an agonised, wheezing slog due to having set out too fast on the way down and the initial return. Worse still – still no kids. This time I decided I had better go back down again and pick one of the two paths at the fork and see what happened. As I was leaving another family came down from the lookout and I mentioned that if they happened to see two kids in their travels. could they kindly ask them to come back to the car. This was somewhat galling at the time as they had about 5 kids with them and didn’t seem to have misplaced even one!

So, onto the second descent, this time at a much more controlled pace as I figured I was already wet so haste wasn’t going to assist much. When I reached the fork (still without sighting the kids) I figured that up might be the right way, hoping it would come out somewhere near where I had started so that if I didn’t come across them this time I could get Liz to head off back to town and I would take the second option and walk into town to meet her. Luckily for me the path ended coming out in a little parkland area near where we had originally parked so I was able to once again head up to the foot of the stairs, sans kids. When I got back to the car there were the kids – it turned out that my guess had been right and they had started heading back up, looking for the car. When they reached the park however they didn’t recognise it as the carpark and made the decision to start walking down the main access road. Part way down the people I had spoken to at the stairs came across them and sent them back up the Mt where they eventually found the car.

For all the stress involved (and the knackered legs – if we ever wanted a serious place for a cricket pre-season I reckon a week or so up and down Mt Rouse would sort us out! – I have to give credit to Max. By the time they finished their journey Harry was wet, cold, tired and well and truly in tears, yet Max kept him going and made sure he made it all the way back to the car. Apparently Harry had actually had it well before they got off the original trail. It also turned out that the kids had asked if they could do the walk trail but we had misunderstood and thought they had asked if they could walk back to the car – so they didn’t really think we would be missing them until they reached the end of the trail and got a little lost down the access road.

Anyway, after this we made it to Warrnambool – just a little later than intended. This time we were holed up in the showgrounds. Luckily for us we found a spot up against a stand of mature pine trees as the wind while we were there was fierce, with coastal wind warnings in all directions.

Warrnambool itself was very picturesque. The day after arriving we went for a drive up to port Fairy, which was a little underwhelming against what we had been lead to expect, and back around into Koroit for lunch. We then kept on touring around and came across the breakwater which had some magic scenery, although the Antarctic wind, as Max calls them, were well and truly present.

That night the Greyhounds were running at the Showgrounds so we wandered down for a look after dinner. In the end however the cold beat us after just one race and we headed back to the comforts of the van. It was an experience however as none of us had ever been to the dog races before.

The next morning it was time to commence the trip up the Great Ocean Road, so we packed up and set out.