Today we went to a clearing sale at Colac, so I couldn't resist going to Red Rock again. It's called Red Rock because the rock (scoria) is ... red. A lot of the volcanoes on the volcanic plain have been mined for the scoria, and in some cases the quarries have disfigured the mountains. Thankfully attitudes have changed and that's not happening any more. These steps lead to a lookout above the carpark, and the 360 degree views are delightful. Be warned though, it's a very windy spot. Hang on to your hat.
The Red Rock is actually a complex nest of maars, scoria cones and lava flows - forty in all - about 8000 years old they say. Normally the maars are lakes but not at the moment. (Maars occur when hot magma rises to the surface through rocks that contain a lot of ground water. The steam forces the magma into explosive clouds of small fragments that form an ash or tuff crater.)
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