from minima of around to maxima of , and rainfall is very frequent and reliable, averaging from in the driest area around Lake Bolac to at Portland. In the Otway Ranges, summers are mild, averaging around , whilst winters are cold and very wet, with maxima averaging around and rainfall averaging about with extremes in June 1952 as high as at Weeaproinah and a Victorian record at nearby Tanybryn. History The Western District was well-populated by Aboriginal Victorians at the time colonisation began. For example, the ancestors of the Gunditjmara people lived in villages of weather-proof houses with stone walls a metre high, located near eel traps and aquaculture ponds at Lake Condah and elsewhere - on just one hectare of Allambie Farm, archaeologists have discovered the remains of 160 house sites. Pioneer Edward Henty wrote in his diary on 3 December 1834: Pulled [rowed] over in the whale boat to Dutton's River. Light wind from the N.E. Very warm. Arrived at 6 p.m., made the boat fast in the middle of the river, and started three days' walk in the bush accompanied by H Camfield, Wm Dutton, five men, one black woman and 14 dogs, each man with a gun and sufficient quantity of damper to last for the voyage. In the 5 December entry Henty wrote: On descending the hill we saw a native. He immediately ran on seeing us. He was busily employed pulling the gums from the wattle trees. Both the Henty brothers and Captain Griffiths (who settled at Port Fairy in 1836), combined whaling and farming. The district was explored by Thomas Mitchell in 1836 who identified the area's potential for grazing. Charles Tyers was the first to survey the area in 1839. Sheep were first brought to the district in 1836 by Thomas Manifold at Port Henry, near Geelong, and rapidly occupied the whole district. By 1840 squatters occupied almost all the district. The first settlers avoided the Western District (preferring the forest country further west), as its countryside was then exceptionally dry: tussocks were so scanty it was said one could walk to Geelong without stepping on grass. Runoff after rainfall was rapid, and it was claimed that only after cattle had firmed the soil that the grass began to thicken. The regional climate also became much wetter. Aboriginal dispossession With pastoral land in the colony of Van Diemen's Land fully allocated to