Two years ago, I ventured into the paddock across from my 1970s house, on the edge of Altona, and I did something I had done dozens of times previously. I got my hands dirty and planted tube stock seedlings. This, though, was the first time I learnt about the paddock I was in. And it opened my eyes. Altona sits smack on the Western Volcanic Plain—the world’s third largest volcanic plain. It extends from the rocky shores of our edge of Port Phillip to near the South Australian