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Warrnambool
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WARRNAMBOOL
seems unable to decide whether it's an industrial city or a charming, seaside agricultural town. Coming into town on the Great Ocean Road you see the more pleasant aspects: the city's lovely coastal setting, with
Allansford Cheeseworld
(Mon-Fri 8.30am-4.30pm, Sat 8.30am-5pm, Sun 10am-5pm) indicating that this is the centre of rich
dairy country
. As well as selling cheese, it has cheese and wine tastings, a cafe serving teas and light meals, and a museum. However, if you approach Warrnambool from the west along the Princes Highway, you'll pass car lots, motels and an ugly factory belching smoke.
Lady Bay , where Warrnambool is sheltered, was first used by sealers and whalers in the early nineteenth century and was permanently settled from about 1839. Southern right whales , hunted almost to extinction, have begun to return in the last few years and have been sighted in the surf off Logans Beach between May and October. The bay was never a good port - exposed as it is to unpredictable weather, reefs and shallow water - and between 1836 and 1908 there were 28 shipwrecks here. The well set-up Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village on Merri Street (daily 9am-5pm; $12) has displays on these and other shipwrecks along the treacherous coast, paying particular emphasis to the Loch Ard disaster. The re-created nineteenth-century village is arranged around a fort erected in 1887, a time when, improbably, the fear of Russian invasion was widespread in Australia.
Warrnambool has a bustling downtown, with a major shopping centre on Liebig Street, several galleries and museums, and some fine old churches. Perhaps the best of the sights is the
Warrnambool Art Gallery
on Liebig Street (daily noon-5pm; $3), a fine provincial gallery with collections of Western District colonial paintings and contemporary Australian prints. The
Botanic Gardens
on Botanic Road, designed in 1877 by William Guilfoyle, then Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, are also worth visiting if you happen to have some spare time. The classically designed, ornamental gardens are filled with winding paths and hills, and provide glimpses of the sea. There's also a fernery, a waterlily pond and a small rotunda. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Australia,
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