Good: Went for a walk around the short waggon walk which goes round the lake. Plenty of birdlife. Easy walk and toilets. Other, longer walks available. Saw a koala up a tree on the road out. Bad: people were feeding a friendly emu - not a great idea as it was begging and they are a bit big! Other: very scenic. Interesting geology. Also worth a trip around the area, particularly at Tower Hill lookout. Note that entrance to the nature reserve is directly off the A1. On Google it’s marked “Tower Hill Park Boundary”.

We had a spare afternoon in Warrnambool and visited Tower Hill, an extinct volcano 10 km west. A narrow, one-way road leads down into the crater where there is good parking We climbed the centre plug, a steepish walk on a very good track. The view at the top was stunning, the lake below, views out to sea. We’ll worth a visit.

Our visit was a minor detour as part of our Great Ocean Road trip - and it was so worthwhile! We visited later in the afternoon in the hope of seeing kangaroos. The Visitor Centre was any open but we were still able to use the car park. As soon as we reached the car park, we saw emus - who made a beeline for our car (think they were hoping for food!) We started down one of the trails but it was a little boggy owing to the recent rain so we turned back to the car park, which is when we looked up and saw a koala sleeping in the tree. Another 10m along and there was another koala in another tree. We then stayed to walk towards the lake when we spotted a third koala…this time munching on the leaves …and it had a baby! We watched for a while as the baby clung on and eventually the baby let go and started climbing it’s own- for us it was a magical moment to watch. One of the highlights of our holiday.