The suburb of Sunshine took its name from a harvester. In the early twentieth century, H. V. McKay built a huge factory here to manufacture the Sunshine Harvester, a machine that revolutionised wheat farming in Australia, and the suburb grew up around the works. In 1907, a court case involving McKay's company, known as the Harvester Judgment, established the principle of a basic wage, enough to support a worker and his family in reasonable comfort, a landmark in Australian labour history.
It is not a beautiful place, but it is a practical finish point for rides that have spent the day on the Great Ocean Road and in the Otways.
The Great Ocean Road, built by returned soldiers after the First World War and dedicated as a memorial to their fallen comrades, follows the coast west of Melbourne for more than two hundred kilometres, with cliffs, beaches, surf towns and rainforest. The Twelve Apostles, limestone stacks standing in the sea off Port Campbell, are its most famous sight, though there are fewer than twelve of them, and they keep collapsing. Inland, the Otway Ranges are covered in tall forests of eucalyptus, tree ferns and myrtle beech, with waterfalls and winding roads.
Coming back into Melbourne after a long day on the coast, the Princes Freeway is fast and busy, and traffic can be heavy on Sunday evenings. Sunshine West has fuel, supermarkets and takeaways on every arterial road, with food from Vietnam, Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe. Melbourne's weather can change quickly, so be prepared for anything from a heatwave to a cold southerly change.