.: Flagstaff Hill Maritime Park

3:30 pm Friday afternoon Michael, Andrew and I are cruising in the BT50 down the M1 car park on our way to Warrnambool for our club trip to check out Flagstaff Hill.  Peter McKinnon, Peter Caddy and Bob Williams were in the second car about an hour in front doing warp factor five (no doubt so they could get the best room) while we were crawling over the Westgate.  Once we got through the gridlock I wound the beast up and set sail for Geelong, passing Avalon my eye caught a blue passenger plane with red tail which prompted much discussion as it was void of any markings, Andrew coming up with the theory that it was being repainted which sounded feasible.

We bypassed Geelong on the new freeway saving ourselves about twenty minutes and twenty-two traffic lights and headed toward Colac, the country side opens up with green rolling pasture showing no sign of the drought as the first spots of rain start to spatter the car.  By the time we reach Colac night is upon us and so is the rain in earnest, we decide to stop for a bite and cruise the main street looking for food, settling for chicken & chips.  After a quick bite in the BT50 we made our way to Warrnambool along the dark wet road occasionally being blown over by the big trucks coming the other way and finally arriving at our motel about 7:30pm tonguing for a cold one.  The other half of the party were nowhere to be seen so we settled in to wait for their return.  About half an hour later they arrive back from having dinner in town which was overpriced and inedible according to Peter Mc. and Bob although Peter C finished his (must have been hungry) and we all sat down to drink and chew the fat.

The wind was picking up the pace outside as well as the rain which set the scene for Peter Mc.s ghost story, which to a non believer like myself, has me thinking twice about things that go bump in the night.  The night rolled on with lots of talk about the cricket on TV until we hit the hay around 1am to the sound of the furious gale outside.  Next morning all up bright & early, well, around 9am (? Ed), we set off to Flagstaff Hill to have brecky and take in the museum for the day.  They have a great café/restaurant there and serve fantastic bacon & eggs while overlooking the museum and coast.  After a fulfilling breakfast and coffee we head out to reception to enter the museum, first stop is a short film reliving the journey from England to Australia on a old sailing ship which was OK but the narrator had quite a thick accent which I found hard to understand some times.  From there we made our way through to a room full of artifacts and photos of the old sailing days of Warrnambool which was very informative and well laid out, then outside to the replica of the old shipping village which is the main attraction of the museum complete with cobblestone streets and authentic buildings ranging from the doctors house, church, classroom, bank, pub and quite a number of shops all open to look inside at how it was in the old days.  A few of these were manned with staff in period costume like the dressmaker and tea house all adding to the atmosphere, we wandered on down the streets to the manmade lake where they have a couple of ships they are slowly restoring which you can walk through and read their history (sorry can't remember what they were called - ask one of the other guys!).

The place is very well laid out and interesting to see with the crew spending a good portion of the day there looking and talking to the staff, so if you have a spare weekend ,go down to Warrnambool and check it out.  After Flagstaff we cruised around town to have a look and pick up some supplies for the night ahead, on the way back to the motel I spied a secondhand book store that we just had to have a look at which had quite an array of subjects.  I managed to walk out of there with a couple of books on aircraft (WWI pilots and planes plus a book on American aircraft from the early days up to now) for $40.  Back at the motel we all chilled out with a drink or two while Bob & Michael went for a snooze, all that walking taking its toll on the old lads. The rest of us had a few drinks then decided to get some takeaway Thai for dinner which turned out to be cheaper and a damn site better than the night before, after which we watched the cricket, piled beer bottles on top of Caddy while he was sleeping and had a look at the 20 odd WWI resin kits that Peter Mc. brought along for show & tell.  After a busy day we all crashed about midnight ready for the trip back in the morning.  Sunday morning saw us packed up by 10am and down to Flagstaff for breakfast again with the rain finally over and the sun starting to show its head for the trip home, which was uneventful except for a quick stop for one to water a tree on the Memorial Avenue in some small country town (he shall remain anonymous).  All in all a bloody good trip with good people which is what this club is all about. Cheers;

Kim.

.: Warrnambool

The stretch from Port Fairy through Warrnambool to Cape Otway is colloquially known as the "Shipwreck Coast", there being some 150-odd wreckings in recorded history.  This isn't counting the so-called "Mahogany Ship", a wreck that may (or may not) be four hundred years old, may (or may not) be Portuguese, may (or may not) be built of mahogany and may (or may not) even exist.  It was supposed to have been uncovered in the sand dunes at one time and has now been buried again, or so the story goes.  Whatever else, it's a boon to the tourist trade of course.  The other big tourist draw at Warrnambool is whale-watching, but while I have to admit I'd take a mild interest if a whale was cavorting in view I wouldn't drive all that bloody way just to see it!

The first offering at Flagstaff Hill is an audio/visual display depicting one man's account of his trip to Australia with his wife in the mid-1800's.  The extremes of weather from tropical heat to arctic cold, and from the sheer terror of violent storms to the crushing boredom of becalming, all laced with appalling food and foul conditions made it a journey to remember (wasn’t much different in 1958…) no wonder they thought Australia was such a great place, however harsh it might be it was far better than contemplating the trip back again!

Next one proceeds through a display of artefacts recovered from shipwrecks.  Amongst these is the steering mechanism from a ship; over six feet long, it consists of a shaft, in a frame, with coarse, opposing threads at each end.  Turning the shaft pulls a pair of arms in opposite directions to control the rudder of the vessel.  It was recovered from one of the wrecks where it lay underwater for a century.  At first sight it appears to be made of wood, with deep striations looking for all the world like the grain of sea-weathered timber, yet it's cast in solid brass! 

When I first visited here some sixteen years ago the centrepiece of the display were the hinges of an enormous ship's rudder.  Mounted to represent their original positions relative to the hull they were a sobering indication of its size.  Sadly they're now tucked away in a passage and are scarcely noticeable, the place of honour being taken by the famous Loch Ard Peacock, a life-size porcelain bird made by Minton in England, intended for the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880 (and now said to be insured for $2m).  The Loch Ard was a clipper that came to grief in 1878 with only two survivors who both came ashore in what is now called Loch Ard Gorge.  The ship was carrying a huge variety of goods, many of them luxury items, and though little was recovered the peacock (obviously well crated) washed ashore intact.

Outside is a 19th century village built on a steep hillside.  At the top are two functioning lighthouses and several (non-functioning) gun emplacements.  A small number of 80pdr RML (Rifled Muzzle Loading) cannon were mounted here to deter the perceived threat of invasion by predatory imperialists and a small garrison was raised and trained locally to man the defences.  The massive guns and their emplacements are largely intact, overlooking Lady Bay to this day.

Proceeding down the bluestone-cobbled 'street' there are all of the establishments one might expect to find in a small seaside township, including bank, school, fire station, doctor, printer, seamstress, church, blacksmith, cooper, mechanics institute, ship's chandler, boat-builder, sail-maker and of course, pub.  The park is similar to Gippsland Heritage Park with the various buildings fitted out with furniture and equipment of the day.  The boat-builders premises for example feature an original boiler, stationary engine and power transmission shaft and belts to wood-working machines and a huge whetstone, all surrounding a superb Huon Pine whaling boat.

On the small man-made lake floats the old oar-driven life-boat Warrnambool and, somewhat incongruously to my mind, a Tasmanian steam ferry, the 27.5 metre Rowitta, built in Hobart in 1908. Her history with Warrnambool is unclear but she was transported there in 1974, by road (and Scammell Contractor) from Lakes Entrance, and now serves as a function centre.  A year later she was joined by the Reginald M, a 1922 26m. cargo-carrying ketch now under restoration.  Under the surface of the water are a couple of sunken rowboats, all very atmospheric, and many other small boats are on display in various parts of the park.  The most significant of all, apparently, is the Viator, a shapely Victorian couta boat in poor condition but slated for restoration.  She was built around 1890-1905 by renowned boatbuilder J. R. Jones of Williamstown.  "Couta" boats were a local adaptation used, as the name suggests, for fishing for Barracouta along the Victorian coast for the fish and chip trade.

Exiting the park takes you through the inevitable souvenir shop full of the usual mass-produced trinkets.  I searched in vain for something unique to take home to Muoi but was disappointed.

Warrnambool itself is a rather picturesque provincial centre, still with many original buildings and well-tended parks and gardens but, before this starts to sound like a tourist brochure, the climate can be atrocious, coming as it does straight off the Southern Ocean for the most part.  The weather during our visit was certainly not great for photography but it did keep the casual sightseers away and leave the displays open for the more serious (and warmly clad) visitor.  You could spend a week or more using Warrnambool as a base to explore the surrounding countryside from Port Fairy to Port Campbell along the coast and including the Great Ocean Road and Tower Hill Nature Reserve in an extinct volcanic caldera less than fifteen kilometres away.

Thanks mainly to Kim for organising the trip details and accommodation and to those who made the trip, it was fun and I'd certainly go again.

Michael.

The famous Loch Ard Peacock, a life-size porcelain bird made by Minton in England, intended for the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880 (and now said to be insured for $2m).