Trains

It isn’t a road trip if I wasn’t trying to photograph trains!

We’d been driving for a few hours before we passed out first one – a loaded grain train bound for Geelong.

A few hours later we found an empty grain train headed back west for another load.

Shortly followed by a load of containers headed the other way for Melbourne.

And then on our way home, a load of steel beams and plate.

Abandoned stations

The only passenger service along the line is twice weekly The Overland, which runs through without stopping.

Inverleigh is just a timber shed.

As is Pura Pura.

At least Westmere still has grain silos.

And Maroona has a disused platform.

And abandoned towns

The Pleurisy Plains are grain and grazing country, and the townships that did exist have been emptying out.

There was nothing much to see at Nerrin Nerrin.

Mininera Primary School is long gone.

Westmere once had a general store, but it’s for sale.

And Streatham – it’s still got an Infant Welfare Centre, but only open two mornings each month.

Wind farms

Windy plains are good for one thing – wind farms.

80 turbines at the Dundonnell Wind Farm north of Mortlake.

75 turbines at the Ararat Wind Farm.

Just two at the Maroona Wind Farm.

And 43 turbines at the Berrybank Wind Farm, with another 26 being added.

Power lines

The power generated by wind farms has to go somewhere, so high voltage transmission lines cross the otherwise empty plains.

The big one is the 500 kV twin circuit Moorabool – Portland line, constructed in the 1980s to transmit electricity generated from burning brown coal to Alcoa’s aluminium smelter at Portland.

The oldest is the single circuit Ballarat to Terang 220 kV line.

But they’ve recently been joined by the 132 kV line that links the Stockyard Hill Wind Farm to the Haunted Gully Terminal Station.

Which passes beneath the older 220 kV line via a tangle of pylons outside Lismore.

Telephone exchanges

In the days before mobile phones, copper wires were the only communication link to the outside world.

Maroona has a telephone exchange not much larger than the outdoor dunny beside it.

As does Nerrin Nerrin.

Berrybank has a shed a little larger.

Streatham’s exchange is bigger again, but it serves an actual town.

But Pura Pura – there is nothing around for miles!

CFA stations

Even with the population leaving the plains, the risk of bushfire is still there.

The CFA station at Nerrin Nerrin is just a little tin shed.

The station at Mininera is far more modern.

As is the one at Langi Logan.

Which replaced the tin shed around the corner.

And finally – Mount Elephant

Every time I’ve gone for a trip on The Overland I’ve pointed out Mount Elephant – a 380-metre-high conical breached scoria cone formed by a dormant volcano, located 1 km from the town of Derrinallum. So since I was in the area, I paid a visit.

Turns out it’s only open for a few hours each Sunday, but I was lucky – they were just about to open!

The visitors centre is located at the base of the mountain.

The access track follows the alignment of a dismantled railway siding.

Which served a ballast quarry, now used as a car park.

The walk to the edge of the crater takes 30 minutes, with the walk around the edge adding an extra hour.

But since it was a stinking hot day, we only made it halfway up.

So we’ll have to visit again!

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