The plan for yesterday was to drive from Port Fairy to Halls Gap via The Grampians - normally a two hour drive north along the Dunkeld Penshurst Road. With a day of "extreme" fire conditions in the area we thought we were doing the right thing by changing our route to Halls Gap at the last minute, to avoid going through the fire vulnerable forest roads of The Grampians NP.
We left Port Fairy round 10.00am giving an affectionate wave to our fave 2A Wishart Street (already booked for the Jazz Festival weekend in February 2025!).
About an hour out of Pt Fairy, approaching Dunkeld we got our first view of the southern peaks of The Grampians - an amazing sight after the miles and miles of flat empty grasslands and pasture along the Dunkeld Penshurst Road.
We had a coffee/handmade pie stop at Dunkeld, home of the iconic Wickens Restaurant and looking good today with all the Red Gums along the main street in full bright red flower.
We detoured at Dunkeld, heading east towards the Great Western Highway to avoid the road to Halls Gap through the National Park. All the while we could tell it was becoming increasingly windy and the outside temperature was rising to the high thirties. We eventually stopped a little way past the small town of Great Western at Best's Winery, one of the iconic wineries in this cool climate (not today!) wine region (alongside the larger Seppelts winery which was just down the road a way).
It was a welcome change to get out of the searing heat and down into the old cellars of Best's winery - one of the oldest in Australia with plantings dating from the 1860s.
Parts of this beautiful old cellar were dug out by hand and the red gum supports were hand milled from trees cleared when the original vines were planted around 160 years ago (no nails were used in the construction either).
We enjoyed a "Premium Wine Tasting experience" here - tasting 7 wines from the range while enjoying a platter of local cheeses. The pleasure was not to last however when messages started coming through from Victorian Emergency Services to LEAVE THE AREA due to a number of uncontrolled fires nearby - directly threatening the township of Pomonal which was on our direct route from Great Western to Halls Gap. On hearing the news we went straight into planning mode, cancelling our 2 night stay at Halls Gap and making arrangements with Ros and Pete to extend our stay with them in Geelong for another 2 nights. Judy and Jurgen made the decision to try to make it back to Canberra. As we emerged from Best's the air felt searingly hot dry and blustery with a menacing smoke haze building all around us.
It was quite tense making driving through the blustery conditions with twigs, branches and leaves falling all around us, smoke haze enveloping everything and fire trucks screaming past us heading northwards .
it was a relief to get away from it eventually and we welcomed a reviving stop in Ballarat on the drive back to Geelong. By this stage we started to hear about the power outages all over the state due to severe storm damage to infrastructure. Judy and Jurgen were really affected by all this on the road back to Canberra (affecting petrol availability, traffic lights not working etc etc) but we were fine.
I took this pic in Ballarat in Lydiard St N - a city of beautiful old buildings - a legacy of gold mining prosperity back in the day.
And a very photogenic laneway in Ballarat's Armstrong St N........
It was so lovely to be welcomed so warmly by darling Ros & Pete here in Geelong last night after such a dramatic day - no power problems where they live, no fires, and no hot winds either. Rob and I went for a long walk this morning - all the way to Born & Bread in Newtown for a good coffee and beautiful handmade pretzels. We walked some of the way along the Barwon River which was looking very pretty this morning - like an Australian Impressionist painting. Geelong is a beautiful city - we're so lucky to be here!
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