Mount Cottrell taxi service

The State of Victoria - Australia, where I live has the World's third largest volcanic field that encompasses an area from Portland in the south-west up to Clunes in the centre of the State, through most of the lower western portion to Colac and eastwards to the outer Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn. An area all told of approximately 2.3 million hectares (roughly 5.7 million acres) or just over 10% of the land mass of Victoria. This field is only exceeded in size by the Deccan field in India and the Snake River Plateau across Idaho-Nebraska in the United States. There are over 400 identifiable volcanic locations in the field (I find this utterly amazing) including a number of dormant (though not necessary extinct) actual volcanoes. The majority of the field sits at a very modest average height of below 250 metres, though with a couple of exceptions that reach 'dizzying' heights above 750 metres, notably Mount Macedon and the Camels Hump north of the Melbourne suburban disapora.

Mount Cottrell is a dormant lava shield volcano rising to the undistinguished height of 61 metres/200 feet above sea level or 34 metres/122 feet above the surrounding countryside. Climbing it is like a reverse Mount Everest in terms of effort, you get more exhausted coming down than going up. It last became geologically 'annoyed' some 20,000 plus years ago, a mere blink in time but almost as old as I feel some days when I don't have a coffee or plenty of said brew. The mountain itself is located 34 kilometres (21 miles) from the Melbourne CBD and not far from the large regional city of Melton. You can see Mount Cottrell on a clear day from most parts of Melbourne's western suburbs despite its pinprick height. Yet, it is little known apart from its geological significance. From its summit, atop a very shallow and near indistinguishable crater, panoramic views are accorded. From 2007, the Shire of Melton purchased the site that the mountain rests and has plans to form a Geological Park, hopefully soon. For those into Geocaching the site is listed as an 'earthcache' too.

It was today that winter menaced, after a phoney few days of mild temperatures. Low clouds intent of rain aided by a forecast where ice blasts from a billion refrigerator doors being opened at once in front of a gusty westerly wind was a distinct possibility. Ideal I thought to trundle up to this mountain and try some photographs of the cold front, as it smacked its way across. However, to get there is a paradigm of sorts. It requires, for me, a rollicking backroads ramble of about 6 kilometres (near on 4 miles) from the nearest railway station at a place called Rockbank (a stop on the Melbourne to Ballarat line). Fortunately, it's not very far from my home with a very short train trip of around 20 minutes. The walk itself is pretty nondescript, except for the occasional car driver intent on sending me to an early kingdom as 'it - the car driver' tests how close they can get whilst passing (and this is despite me wearing the most obscenely bright jacket especially designed for road walking). Such actions merely confirm in my mind that most car drivers belong at the end of the food chain and posses as much intelligence as writers of Government Legislation (and just as obtuse). I could relate many tales of near mayhem resulting from 'close encounters of the mad machine kind' on my plods over the years - it's one thing that does provoke in me undisguised ire! If I were only a Policeman, undercover as a walking plodder, I'd book these crazies with the heftiest fine I could legally impose and turn their cars into scrap metal (or should that be melted down plastic).

Nonetheless, as I plodded in the post sunup light, the wind was determined to push me back up the road but I was so rapt at being in the tarty air, feeling its brace making my skin tingle. Though winter, I was glad to be able to sense my environment. As ever, my eyes were seeking photographs - maybe this one, no wait over there another subject, hey, what that thing behind the rock? Nearing the mountain, which despite its undernourishment, can be seen for miles around (using 'kilometres around' just does not seem to flow off the tongue); I spotted a car wreck and smiled at its fate. But, as I came closer the colours leapt at me and despite its vandalism I did wonder, momentarily, of its history? How did it come to be in this paddock, near this ordinary backroad west of Melbourne? Of course, I could not resist a photograph and napped away. Ordinarily, I would give scant regard to such wreckage which blights the landscape but this Old Timer was not too obtrusive. As I was taking the photo, a rather dark coloured snake slipped across my feet. I froze, I could not even move my finger to press the camera's shutter and take an 'action photo'! In the instant of my recognition of the snake I recalled an earlier incident a few years ago when I woke up to find one of these slippery reptiles inside my sleeping bag, quite content. But but that's another tale for another day. I had the presence of mind, in this fear stricken instant, as my heart spiked into overdrive by an adrenalin burst from glands that are normally in hibernation, that to move was to provoke, especially as I had no idea of the snake's glad intentions or not. Within a handful of seconds that seemed an hour, this living hula-hoop cousin went on its way into some nearby rocks. Phew! I was not the least curious to see what type of snake it was but a brown snake was my first impression - though why it was slithering about in the morning cool puzzled me - surely its cold blood must have been, well, cold? After this encounter I continued on my merry way, though I felt like I had a run a marathon. If I had been drug tested right there and then, some interesting results of excessive naturally occurring hormones would have registered only marginally diluted by Brazilian coffee.

Yet, reaching Mount Cottrell was well worth the drama on the way and as expected not another soul was about. I ended up spending all morning taking in the vista, scurrying about looking at the mostly basalt rocks, looking for any tiny fossils (it is reputed you can find shell fragments for the place was once under water), marvelling at my good fortune sitting atop a Volcano and so close to home too! I felt Lord of nothing in particular but I was awestruck of Nature's genius once more.

ps

For anyone living in Melbourne or the southern climes generally, this Saturday night there is partial Lunar eclipse, starting around 7:00pm with its maximum around 9:00pm. Just look towards the Moon rising from the East and watch. If you ever need proof (some people apparently still do) that the Earth is round, just watch the Earth's shadow pass across the night's Orb. Too, I found out today that the Earth's shadow extends for some 500,000 kilometres or roughly 311,000 miles into Space (to demonstrate time using the Sun in this way you'd need a massive Sun-dial, I presume).