Willaura

In the heart of Victoria's famed Western Districts, wool growing and cereal cropping are central to Willaura's financial prosperity.

The Willaura Hotel is nearing its centenary, while the railway station, through which tonnes of wool and grain were once freighted to the eastern markets, now accommodates the collected artefacts and memorabilia of the local Historical Society.

The regional plains round Willaura to the east of The Grampians - a stunning range of scenic mountains - are studded with lakes and swamps which are home to a wide variety of water birds.

Regularly in autumn, the bulk of Western Victoria's brolga population - several hundreds in number - congregate on the larger wetlands. Bird fanciers will also discover a variety of ducks, including plumed whistling ducks, and a range of other waterfowl such as stilts and avocets, black-tailed native-hens.

Willaura is about an hour and a half's drive from such Great Southern Ocean resort towns as Portland, Warrnambool and Peterborough.