A Probus roadtrip

21 Oct 2015

Three Probus clubs in ACT joined forces and hit the road for an eight-day tour of Victoria. These included members from the Tuggeranong, Western Creek Ladies, Gungahlin and Majura Ladies Club. 

We mostly disregarded the main highways to wind our way through the scenic countryside and visited many highlights, such as Sovereign Hill at Ballarat and the picturesque Great Ocean Road, absorbing the history of the shipwreck coast at Flagstaff Hill at Warrnambool. Then we drove through delightful country towns to Bendigo before traveling back home. It was an enjoyable adventure that whetted the appetite to revisit at another time. 

This is a photo of us at Cape Otway Lightstation. This has been in operation since 1848, signalling the shores of the shipwreck coast where Bass Straight and the Southern Ocean collide. This is an historic site incorporating many restored areas of interest.

Here we are at Historic Flagstaff Hill, Victoria, with the Middle Island Little Penguin Project maremma dogs, Eudy and Tula, alongside their handler Peter Abbot.

In the early 1999, there was an active Little Penguin colony on Middle Island Warrnambool. However as a result of fox attacks and human interference over a number of years, the recorded population decreased. 

Things had to change and a local farmer came up with the idea of using Maremma guardian dogs to protect the bird colonies on Middle Island.
Since the introduction of Maremmas to the island, there have been no recorded fox attacks and the two Maremmas pictured are the new penguin guardian dogs that live at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village. Numbers are slowly recovering, and most importantly, breeding birds have returned. The newly released movie “Oddball” tells of this story.