Ararat

The city of Ararat is on the Western Highway, 85 km west of Ballarat and 198 km north-west of Melbourne. Its name arose from a pastoralist/explorer, Horatio Wills, who arrived in the district in 1841 and named a rise ‘Mount Ararat’, for ‘like the arc, we rested there’. Mount Ararat (618 m) is about 7 km south-west of Ararat.