Lancefield, Victoria

(re-published to share with Facebook)

Stayed in Lancefield, a small town an hour’s drive north of Melbourne, where campground fees were more in line with my budget. The money saved on campground fees was all used up by the cost and time of driving back and forth to Melbourne – won’t make that mistake again. Had my 1st encounter with a unisex toilet here – one room with 2 cubicles each, for toilets and showers, labelled for men and women (of course the men used the women’s toilet too), with shared mirrors and sinks. This took some getting used to, but when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go…

Driving north of town, through rolling ranch land, you come across terrain littered with huge boulders of all shapes and sizes, I think “tossed” here millions of years ago by a volcanic explosion – maybe the same or related event that created the Hanging Rock formation ~30 kilometers away? Notice the colour of the grass – brown, brown, brown – temperature this day, 40C – dry heat and not a cloud in the sky. The boulders were scattered over a large area and just as suddenly as they appeared, they disappeared again. The blurry photo doesn’t do justice to the scene. Notice how one rock is literally perching on top of another.

boulders tossed by an ancient volcano

the biggest 30/40 feet high

A few KMS South west of Lancefield, is Hanging Rock, of the book/movie fame – “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. It’s a formation, created by a volcano about 6.5 million years ago, that rises 105 meters above the surrounding plain. It’s a –

“mamelon (French lit. nipple) …  formed six million years ago when a particularly stiff type of lava formed a rounded pile of layers on the surface as it was squeezed through a narrow vent in the earth.” – text borrowed from their website along with the 1st picture below.

A few shots on my climb up the “nipple” – click twice to enlarge.

mother nature at work over 6 million years ago

lava cliff faces ~40 meters high

view near the top, out over the surrounding parched grasslands