Western District (Victoria)

It consists of a nearly flat volcanic plain created by a number of quite recently active volcanoes, the best known being Mount Eccles, Mount Richmond and Mount Gambier. Whilst some of them (e.g. Mount Richmond) have given rise to cemented pyroclastic rocks that do not produce fertile soils, others have given rise to fertile Andisols that make the district the best grazing land in Australia, as well as highly suitable for the production of vegetable crops. Away from the volcanoes, soils are of moderate to low fertility and many are sandy, supporting heathland flora like the Grampians. Drainage is very poor and most rivers flow only after prolonged periods of steady rain, resulting in remarkably variable flow when the low variability of the climate is taken into account. The major mountain range is the Otway Ranges, which straddle the boundary between the Western District and Port Phillip District.

The climate is mild to warm and generally humid to sub-humid. Summer temperatures are warm, with February means ranging from 13.1 to 21.9 °C (55.6 to 71.4 °F) at Portland[5] to 11.1 to 26.6 °C (52.0 to 79.9 °F) in the northern part of the plain.[6] Rainfall in summer is not uncommon but is only rarely heavy; though in March 1946 rains of up to 300 millimetres (12 in) in a week constitute easily the heaviest falls in the district. In winter, temperatures typically range from minima of around 5 °C (41 °F) to maxima of 12 to 13 °C (54 to 55 °F), and rainfall is very frequent and reliable, averaging from 550 mm (22 in) in the driest area around Lake Bolac to 832 mm (32.8 in) at Portland.[5] In the Otway Ranges, summers are mild, averaging around 20 °C (68 °F), whilst winters are cold and very wet, with maxima averaging around 9 to 10 °C (48 to 50 °F) and rainfall averaging about 2,250 mm (89 in) with extremes in June 1952 as high as 538 mm (21.2 in)[7] at Weeaproinah and a Victorian record 891 mm (35.1 in) at nearby Tanybryn.

The Western District was well-populated by Aboriginal Victorians at the time colonisation began. For example, the ancestors of the Gunditjmara people lived in villages of weather-proof houses with stone walls a metre high, located near eel traps and aquaculture ponds at Lake Condah and elsewhere - on just one hectare of Allambie Farm, archaeologists have discovered the remains of 160 house sites.[8]

Henty wrote in his diary on 3 December 1834:

Arrived at 6p.m., made the boat fast in the middle of the river, and started three days' walk in the bush accompanied by H Camfield, Wm Dutton, five men, one black woman and 14 dogs, each man with a gun and sufficient quantity of damper to last for the voyage.

In the 5 December entry Henty wrote:[9]

On descending the hill we saw a native. He immediately ran on seeing us. He was busily employed pulling the gums from the wattle trees.

Both the Henty brothers and Captain Griffiths (who settled at Port Fairy in 1836), combined whaling and farming. The district was explored by Thomas Mitchell in 1836 who identified the area's potential for grazing. Charles Tyers was the first to survey the area in 1839. Sheep were first brought to the district in 1836 by Thomas Manifold at Port Henry, near Geelong, and rapidly occupied the whole district. By 1840 squatters occupied almost all the district.

The first settlers avoided the Western District (preferring the forest country further west), as its countryside was then exceptionally dry: tussocks were so scanty it was said one could walk to Geelong without stepping on grass. Runoff after rainfall was rapid, and it was claimed that only after cattle had firmed the soil that the grass began to thicken. The regional climate also became much wetter.[10][11]

Wheat was grown in the drier northern part of the district for some time until more easily managed soils in the Wimmera were developed. Dairying was developed as a major industry in the wetter southern parts during this period, as was the cultivation of potatoes and onions on the best soils.

In the Otway Ranges, forestry became the major industry, especially after the building of the Great Ocean Road which opened up these very wet areas. Because of the change in focus since the late 1960s to woodchipping, many timber mills are now defunct as jobs have moved to Geelong. Tourism is the dominant industry in towns such as Lorne and Apollo Bay, which fill up during the summer as Melburnians are drawn by the stunning scenery and milder weather. In towns like Heywood and Nelson, pine plantations have been the dominant industry since the 1950s but the industry, even as plantations mature, is under threat due to poor prices.

• Kanawinka Geopark

• Barta, Tony (2008). ""They appear actually to vanish from the face of the Earth." Aborigines and the European project in Australia Felix". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (4): 519–539. doi:10.1080/14623520802447768.
• Boyce, James (2011). 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. Melbourne: Black Inc.
• Clark, Ian D. (1990). Aboriginal languages and clans: An historical atlas of western and central Victoria, 1800-1900. Melbourne: Dept. of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University. ISBN 0-909685-41-X.
• Clark, Ian D. (1995). Scars in the landscape: A register of massacre sites in western Victoria, 1803-1859. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. ISBN 0-85575-281-5.
• Clark, Ian D. (2003). ‘That’s my country belonging to me’ - Aboriginal land tenure and dispossession in nineteenth century Western Victoria. Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services.
• Critchett, Jan (1990). A distant field of murder: Western district frontiers, 1834-1848. Carlton, Vic. and Portland, Or.: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84389-1.
• The Gunditjmara People (2010). Wettenhall, Gib (ed.). The People of Budj Bim: Engineers of aquaculture, builders of stone house settlements and warriors defending country. Victoria: em Press, Heywood.
• Weir, Jessica (2009). The Gunditjmara Land Justice Story (pbk). Monograph series. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Native Title Research Unit. ISBN 978-0-85575-439-6.