VICTORIA'S
GREATEST DRIVING TOURS AND HERITAGE TOWNS
Historic...COLAC
When Hugh Murray settled the plains some distance west of Port Phillip in 1837, the Henty brothers had been established only three years at Portland, word of explorer Thomas Mitchell’s “Australia Felix” was news, and Melbourne’s village was in its infancy.
Murray’s search for fertile land was successful, and he camped on the banks of the Barongarook Creek. Following in his footsteps were scores of settlers who farmed richly rewarding land and founded the town of Colac. With freshwater Lake Colac on its northern edge, the town’s grid pattern and commercial centre took impetus from development on Murray Street - the main Princes Highway from Geelong. Gracious homes and imposing public buildings evolved around surveys made in 1844 and 1848, although the town was not gazetted officially until 1859.
The Colac Botanic Gardens were established in 1868 to a design by Daniel Bunce of Geelong. The broad swathe of green on the shores of Lake Colac was a brilliant location for public gardens, but forty-two years later William Guilfoyle - associated with Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens - was critical of their stiff and formal layout. He suggested that the planting should take more advantage of the slopes and views across the lake and Barongarook Creek. Guilfoyle’s plans were not adopted, but some of his ideas for planting were, and today the diversity of over a thousand species is a tribute to the good intentions of both Bunce and Guilfoyle.
Colac Botanic Gardens were listed by the National Trust in 1990, and several specimens are listed on the Register of Significant Trees.
The Colac city walk, map available from the visitor centre in Murray Street, covers a six kilometre circuitous route including the sculpture path along Barongarook Creek to the lake and gardens, bird sanctuary, historic homes such as Balnagowan and The Elms. The bluestone used for building St Andrew’s church is believed to have been imported as ballast for sailing ships from New Zealand in Victoria’s goldrush years.
Shops in Murray Street now display modern facades, but reveal a hint of their heritage in ornate gable-ends above footpath canopies. Market Square, often called Memorial Square, has an imposing war memorial set amongst shady, peaceful gardens. An inscription in stone records Federal Oppostion leader Andrew Fisher’s “last man and last shilling” speech delivered in Colac in July, 1914.
Three blocks south is Colac railway station, built in 1877, has a rarely-seen locomotive turntable still in use after restoration in 1980.
The region surrounding Colac is the third largest volcanic plain in the world and covers most of Victoria’s Western District. From Red Rock lookout, sixteen kilometres to the north, the sweeping panorama unfolds, revealing dozens of cones and crater lakes remaining from volcanic activity which ended just six thousand years ago.
West of Colac, the Stoney Rises were once a barrier to wheeled traffic on the Princes Highway. The district has an extensive network of drystone walling, built by skilled craftsmen from Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and the many walls were built in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of rabbits in the late 1800s.
Colac is 150km south-west of Melbourne on the Princes Highway via Geelong, a two-hour drive.
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