Today we went for a drive to Ararat. We went to a lookout which was quite incredible and looked out over the valley and the mountains near Ararat.
Then we went to the Gum San museum here. This is a Chinese museum which commemorates the Chinese who came to this area in the 1850’2 in the goldrushes. There were about 20 000 Chinese who landed in Robe and walked to the goldfields . It was really good and we practised our calligraphy as well as doing some gold panning.
After that we went to Great Western. This is a little town which has a Seppelts winery called Great Western . We also went to Best’s winery which is one of the oldest wineries.
After that we went to Stawell which holds the Stawell Gift each year at Easter. This is a 100m foot race. We went to the lookout and had a quick look at the gold mine which has been going since 1981.
Then we had afternoon tea at a local park where a number of swans and ducks were swimming on the lake. The swan had 5 cygnets which were quite big but they didn’t have many feathers yet. We then returned home. Fortunately today was not as cold as yesterday.
The land here is quite beautiful with lots of rolling green hills and sheep dotted all over the place.
