Road Trip: Tower Hill , Warnambool, Colac, Winchelsea 2019

When sorting old photos recently, I came across photos of the road trip to and from a Port Fairy holiday in 2019  .  It was an interesting trip home.  I always meant to share these photos so now is as good as any time.  My manager had suggested that I take a week of leave because life was pretty stressful.  It was a welcome break.  We drove without many stops on the way to Port Fairy but we meandered home with a few stops.  It might have been reluctance to go home or maybe we started on the road earlier or it could have been I needed more stops because my back was sore.  Whichever, the trip offered quite a few pleasant surprises as well as one that was not so pleasant.

Before I tell you about our first stop at Tower Hill on the way home, I will share the lunch we had on the way to Port Fairy.  We stopped at Winchelsea where we went to the local market that I think was along the main street.  For lunch we bought a fantastic Zeally Bay sourdough baguette and some delicious soft brie that we ate a small table.  It was a lovely simple rustic meal without cutlery.

 

 

We had a quick look at the shops.  There is a small shopping strip in Winchelsea so it does not take long.   One store had some really nice sustainable items.  I bought my bread bag that I still have today.  Since then it has housed many loaves of bread.  It is much more stained and frayed around the zip than in this photo. 

 

 

Possibly the highlight of the trip was a stop at Tower Hill soon after we left Port Fairy.  We had enjoyed a trip to Tower Hill in 2013.  Six years later it was just as delightful to be out in the bush inside the crater of the dormant volcano.  As we made our way to the start of the walk, we saw a fluffy koala in a tree.  They always look like they would be great to cuddle but once I have heard a koala growling, I am not so sure.

We had a gentle walk along one of the paths through the bush.  It was soul soothing to walk among the towering gum trees in an crater of a volcano dormant for approximately 25,000 years.  A great way to put one's life into perspective.

I enjoyed seeing the wildlife.  Some of the flowers like the above thistle were lovely and it was very entertaining watching a willy wagtail (bird) darting among the trees.

Tower Hill is a huge expanse of bush (a lot of it reclaimed from cattle grazing).  There is a road to drive down into the crater.  I really love all the layered rock walls that you can see on the top photo with our car. that we had back in 2019.  The above photo is of the view as well drove out and looked back.

At the top of the drive out was a paddock of emus.  This fine chap was not at all shy in parading his feathers in front of us. 

Then we drove onto Warnambool, which is the second largest town on the drive from Port Fairy to Melbourne.  The largest is Geelong!  In Warnambool we happened to drive past this wonderful Ngatanwarr (Welcome) Mural by Adnate.

While the first photo of the mural shows the detail, the one above shows the impressive scale of the artwork.  I was so amazed by the street art that I stopped to take a photo.  I don't know Warnambool this well but this artwork and the cafe we visited for lunch gave me a better impression of the town than other times we have driven through on the way to and from Port Fairy.

We had a fantastic lunch at Day Kitty Cafe (52b Kepler Street Warrnambool).  I am really pleased to see that it is still open according to the internet.  When browsing Day Kitty Cafe's instagram, it looks like they are still serving beautiful healthy vegetarian and vegan food.  I would definitely return if I had the opportunity.

It was at Day Kitty that I first had this lovely Jiva Pomegranate Jiva.  It was so exciting to find such good kombucha back then!  Since then kombucha and other adult sodas have become more common but in 2019 the choice was far more limited if I could find any.  Sylvia was happy with a juice (probably apple, maybe freshly squeezed).

Another revelation was Sylvia's experience of scrambled eggs on toast.  She loved it so much that she was inspired to try making her own scrambled eggs on toast at home.  You can see one of her home versions of scrambled eggs on a 2019 post. 

As for me, I had was very pleased with my Nourish Bowl.  It was vegan and gluten free.  This was a full satisfying bowl of kraut, avocado half with mixed seed topping, pumpkin, greens, dukkah, pickled vegetables, kale chips, green goddess pesto, cashew turmeric hollandaise, herbed lentil salad & lemon on the house grain mix.  All for $16.50.  This was a wonder of a rural town where my expectations were so much lower than in the city of Melbourne. 

Day Kitty Cafe also had a small groceries section of fancy and healthy groceries.  We bought this coconut and vanilla flavoured Serious Popcorn.  The photos is taken on our stop in Colac where I had a quick walk at the Colac Memorial Square.  The trip was at the end of Spring (November), hence all the daisies among the grass.

At the centre of the Memorial Square is the impressive sandstone Colac War Memorial that was unveiled in 1924 in memory of the local soldiers who had enlisted in World War II .  Since then, more names have been added.  We had the added pleasure of seeing the roses in bloom that are planted in front of it.

Our last stop was to look at this street art on a signal box in Winchelsea.  Above is an orca and below is a seagull.  In the background of the gull photo is the sign of a petrol station.  These are so important when doing a long drive.  It is not the cheapest petrol but they are an essential stop when the tank is low and you know it could be some time before you have the opportunity again.

We then drove on to Geelong where I was stopping to see my parents.  Before we got there I was pulled over by the police because my car was unregistered.  I was so certain that I had paid the registration that I convinced the police officer to let me drive on to my parents to check on the their computer rather than paying on the spot.  When I checked in Geelong, I found I had not paid so I instantly deposited the money online with VicRoads.

The holiday had been so relaxing and wonderful that it was such a shame to end on a low note.  However I have great memories of the holiday and the trip back.  The unpaid registration saga ended with my doctor kindly writing a letter to support an appeal and the fine being waived.  

The sadder end to the story was that the Orchard Cottages where we stayed at Port Fairy in 2019 (as well as twice previously) were a casualty of the Covid pandemic and have now closed.  I have yet to find another holiday accommodation at Port Fairy to rival it but I still hope I will and that we will return in the not so distant future.  Six years since our last trip to Port Fairy is too long!  It is such a wonderful place for a holiday and the drive there and back has lots of interesting places to stop.