Well, here we are in GEELONG. The drive down from BALLARAT was uneventful, and Know All Nancy guided us straight to our chosen Camp Ground. We did break some new ground on the way down though. Seeing as the road was good and the traffic light, I pulled off to the side of the road and climbed out. In answer to Christel’s rather worried “What’s wrong?” I replied, “You’re driving!”. Reluctantly she climbed into the driver’s seat, and then drove for about 20 km without any problems. Her first time towing the caravan.
After setting up camp and having lunch, our first port of call was the Ford Discovery Centre. Ford has a major engineering and parts manufacturing plant in GEELONG, so it was fitting that it should set up what is basically a museum and information centre about the Ford Motor Car.
Lots of “wows”, and “Dad look at this”, and Christel shamelessly drooling over the latest models. Cameron got to sit in a Model T, and after watching all the cutaway displays of engines and cars working, he is now an expert on how a Ford works. Very educational for all of us. BY the time we got out of there it was too late do anything else, so we went down to the beautiful Geelong waterfront for a drink and a look around.
Tuesday we decided we would visit the WERRIBEE OPEN RANGE ZOO, which was another item on our ‘Must Do’ list. So after a morning’s school work we set off to WERRIBEE which is about 40 km north of GEELONG, on the road to MELBOURNE, faithfully following Nancy’s instructions.
Just before we got to the WERRIBEE turnoff, we saw some old WW2 Airfield Hangers by the side of the road. I was busy explaining their significance to Cameron when I suddenly saw a sign ‘B24 LIBERATOR’. For those of you who don’t know, a B24 Liberator is an American Four Engine Bomber Plane which saw a lot of action during WW2. I just had time to swing off the motorway to catch the entrance gate.
Memories came flooding back. I recalled seeing an item in an old Australian Post magazine, or similar, about 10 or 15 years ago, about a B24 which had been found crashed in a jungle somewhere in the Pacific by an Australian. He had recovered it back to his place in Victoria where it lay for many years. It was rediscovered again by some restoration enthusiasts and transported to WERRIBEE where it was going to be restored. Could this possibly be the same plane? For some reason I just knew it was.
We had no sooner got inside the door of the hanger, and there on a display board was a clipping of the very same article I had read. I couldn’t believe it. We spent the next hour or so being given a guided tour of the plane and the restoration project. An amazing experience. I just wished Dad could have been there. Cameron got to sit in the restored cockpit and was really spellbound to actually see and touch a real war plane. His camera was very busy. We found out they are only open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Some things are meant to be. For those of you aeroplane enthusiasts (and I know of at least three) have a look at the website www.b24australia.org.au and you will see the plane pretty much as we did.
From there it was a short drive to the Werribee Zoo which specializes in an open range style of keeping animals. Zoo is not the appropriate name for this place as the enclosures are so big. Our first part was a bus trip through some of the huge paddocks containing various animals that in the wild would normally associate with each other. Hence Zebras, Giraffes, ostriches and antelopes would be in one paddock. The surroundings were so well done you would swear you were in the middle of Africa. There were also hippos, rhinos and camels. To give you an idea of the size of the place the bus trip took 45 minutes and must have covered about 10 km.
Then it was on foot to check out the rest of the park. Not a huge variety of animals, but to see them in surroundings so natural was just brilliant. It was more like going on a safari than visiting a zoo. Cameron was absolutely rapt to the point where there was smoke coming out of his camera. On the last count I think it was 92 photos between the B24 visit and the zoo.
Because we had spent so long at the zoo we ran out of time to visit the nearby Werribee Mansion, a huge homestead built by a rich farming family in the 1870’s and now listed as one of Australia’s Heritage sites. It was Victoria’s largest family home. We did manage to walk up the drive through the park like grounds and grab a quick photo or two, but were too late for a tour. Never mind.
After dinner we went for a walk and just on dark saw dozens of fruit bats flying over our heads on their way out for their night’s feeding. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, at BALLARAT we went for a drive in the country just on dark one night, and saw a fox run across the road just in front of us. Another first.
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