Dunkeld, Penshurst and Ballarat

When we visited the Southern Grampians a couple of years ago we were most impressed by the wildflower display near Dunkeld. As it is (sort of) on an alternate route back from Portland we decided to give it another go. Before leaving Portland we did a Harbour walk. A very old-fashioned PO Box.

As well as the shell work in the park we came across this mosaic armchair ...

... including the names of the kids who made it.

The aim of this was to tick a Kelp Gull, which we managed: see arrows.

A couple of snaps of our accommodation.

En route to Dunkeld we passed through Heywood where the water tower caught our eye. This is part of the Silo Art trail, even though it isn't a silo.

A plaque nearby explains about the interpretation of the work. I hope you can read this. While some of the text is rather touchy feelie it covers the landscape elements (eg Budj Bim, lava flow) better than the silo art page.

Heading North on the Henty Highway we got some early views of the Grampians, with the Northern element (about 60km from Dunkeld) just visible on the LHS of this image.

The Southern Peaks stand out.

After unloading we headed off to The Piccaninny car park to check the orchids. They were much reduced from our previous visit but IMO still quite good.

Lots of Caladenia carnea in various shades from white to deep pink.

Although it was only 16C quite a few Sun Orchids were open. This Thelymitra antennifera hadn't quite made it.

Sorry about the crap photo of T. ixiodes.

A slightly better one of T. rubra.

The next morning we did a lap of the Myer estate. My hope in this was to see the emus in the bush on the NE Corner. That happened: up to 12 were seen on various visits to the area.

We were intrigued by the amount of traffic going along the tracks beside the wall. Frances worked out eventually that this was parents dropping kids off at the back entrance to the school.

Here is a shot of the wall. In total it is 1.3 km around the property, so a lot of rock.

Some of them have fossils visible!

The guys who did the work.

We then went to try our luck on the Mount Sturgeon walk.

A lady at the Visitor Centre said the 1km stretch parallel to the road was relatively flat and had the best flowers. It started to get steep on smooth rock after turning away and after another 800 m we gave up. We'd climbed about 90 m (about 5%) in that distance so in the remaining 2km were going to gain about 300m (15% average so probably the steep bits were going to be approaching a 50% scramble).

The flowers were indeed good (unlike many of my phone photographs).

Conospermum mitchellii (Victorian Smokebush)

Grevillea dimorpha (Flame Grevillea). Initially we didn't believe this suggestion by the iNaturalist AI, thinking it didn't look like Grevillea foliage but a human also gave this ID and looking at the image carefully realised it was correct.

Calytrix alpestris was very common, at times forming almost a hedge along both sides of the path.

The only orchid we recorded was again Caldenia carnea.

Stylidium armeria (yet to be confirmed on iNaturalist).

A flowering eucalypt.

Acacia paradoxa

After lunch Frances suggested there was quite a lot of interesting things to see at Penshurst, about 25km SE of Dunkeld so off we went. The Volcanoes Discovery Centre was closed due to illness but there was a lot to see outside (as well as the charming bluestone building.

This is the name of the volcanic region is shown here. This Province goes from Corangimite in Victoria to Mount Gambier in SA.

This panel in the display shows the 64km lava flow from Mount Rouse (see below) to Port Fairy. Apparently lava will not flow that far so there must have been other vents along the way.

A good selection of volcanic rocks. The one in front of Frances is a volcanic bomb weighing 5 tons.

So we drove up Mount Rouse

... with art at a picnic area.

The view from the top goes across to the Grampians, with Penshurst in the foreground.

The steps up to the lookout are impressive.

After descending we went to Yatmerone Swamp Nature Reserve, with a good selection of water birds including our first White-necked Heron of the trip ...

... and a dozy Lowland Copperhead (the weather was pretty cool and windy).

Back in the town we checked out the Wetlands Garden. The spring in the rock enclosure is natural and according to a sign delivers 250,000 gallons (about 1 million litres) a day.

So that was our day in Dunkeld and around . I proposed coming back to Melbourne with a stop in Ballarat to tick a Great-crested Grebe at Lake Wendouree (and buy some cheap diesel nearby). We stopped in Glenthompson (next village East of Dunkeld ) to photograph an old quarry. This is the home of Glenthompson Bricks. This blog has a lot of interesting information about history of brick making in the area.

I am assuming that this eroded bank is the clay used for brick making.

The - rather decrepid looking - brick works.

On getting to Lake Wendouree parking seemed busy , but we got a spot without excessive trouble and went to check the Botanic Gardens.

The reason for the busy-ness was markets in the garden. An interesting mixture of local produce, craftwork and general stuff. Lots of punters.

Also lots of well behaved dogs.

This long queue was for a bread/bakery stall. This is apparently always graced with a long queue - possibly because the owners are chatty (and their product - such as jam doughnuts - was very good).