Mount William (also Mount Duwil) is a
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...
of the Grampians Mountain Range, located within the
Grampians National Park, in the
Australian state of
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
. The mountain is situated approximately west-northwest of
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
on the eastern edge of the national park, approximately drive from
Halls Gap
Halls Gap is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located on Grampians Road, adjacent to the Grampians National Park, in the Shire of Northern Grampians local government area. The town is set in the Fyans Valley at the foot of the Wonderland a ...
.
Features and location
Mount William is the highest point within the
Grampians National Park. Sir
Thomas Mitchell reached the summit with a group of explorers in 1836. The first settler in the area was
Horatio Wills
Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (5 October 1811 – 17 October 1861) was an Australian pastoralist, politician and newspaper owner.
Biography
Born in Sydney in the British penal colony of New South Wales, Wills grew up on George Street with his ...
, who established a sheep run at Mount William in 1840, and named nearby Mount Ararat, after which
the town is named. His son,
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
er and
Australian rules football pioneer
Tom Wills
Thomas Wentworth Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was an Australian sportsman who is credited with being Australia's first cricketer of significance and a founder of Australian rules football. Born in the British penal colony of New ...
, grew up as a lone white child among the
Djab wurrung Aboriginal tribes of Mount William.
Three transmission towers are located at the summit of Mount William including an amateur radio repeater. A sealed service road continues to the summit, but is not accessible by vehicle to the general public.
Visitors to the mountain can drive to a carpark located approximately up the mountain, before proceeding on foot for to the summit. It will take a person of moderate fitness approximately 45 mins to walk. No permit is required to climb the mountain.
Gallery
Image:Mt_William_1.JPG, Western vantage from Mount William
Image:Mt_William_3.JPG, Western vantage from Mount William
Image:Arthur Streeton - Land of the Golden Fleece, 1926.jpg, Mount William depicted in Arthur Streeton's 1926 painting ''Land of the Golden Fleece''
Climate
Due to being an exposed peak in the far west of Victoria, Mount William features especially cool maximum temperatures throughout the year. Winter cloud cover is profound; with an extraordinary 26 days of precipitation in July, constituting an annual total of 211—quite possibly the highest figure of any site in mainland Australia.
Snowfalls
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.
It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...
are both frequent and heavy throughout the year.
The peak can be classed as a cold
mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
on account of high summer (February) only averaging of rainfall.
See also
*
List of mountains in Victoria
*
Pomonal, Victoria
References
External links
Geoscience Australia - Mount William
{{Victorian mountains , state=autocollapse
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
Grampians (national park)