Werribee Mansion

 I read that a Barking Owl was findable in the Park around Werribee Mansion, which lurks behind the Zoo off the M1.  So we took ourselves there, with a little Satnav amusement due to a recent update to my iPhone and possibly a connectivity issue.  Buried in the Parks webpage is a warning about road works on the nearby K road, which I unfortunately didn't see.  Even by the low standards of Roads Victoria and its useless contractors this was a shambles.  

It did give us a good look at the surprising amount of horticulture in the area!

I went armed with a copy of this page from the Parks Visitor Guide on my phone expecting to get an easier to read hard copy on site.

So we saw signs to a Parks Victoria office and I climbed 3 floors of stairs to get there.  No public access: it is the admin facility.  The public (aka scum) access is in the front of the Mansion.  So I go there, and the map is A5 with half the detail of the online one.  I asked the staffer how to get to the Bluestone ford and she had had never heard of it!  (see comment below)

This snip from Google Earth shows the walk we did, started just to the right of the rectangular paddock in the centre bottom.
We started going to the Rose Garden, which was full of .... roses.
There were also a few signs.  Did they tell anything about the roses? No just "Please don't touch the roses."  We were much reminded of the song "Jobsworth".  

There were some nice trees around.
This is a Cape Chestnut.
A parterre is part of the design.
Complete with some lilies.
Two parts of the mansion: this is the old bit,
This is I think more modern and is a large hotel ($450 a night for 2 folk).
More my style, over towards the farmyard.

We eventually found our way to the ford, which looked a bit deep.  I think our friend used the rocks of the fish passage to cross


But we wimped out.  Couldn't see nor hear the owl in the area.  So we wandered back to the car and headed back to town via the fields of bassica,


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