The drive to the Grampians was typical of what I expected in Australia: long and flat.  But then mountains pierced the horizon!

We found Halls Gap Lakeside Tourist Park and checked in.  The woman at reception, when we asked if there was a specific place to “go” to see the roos, looked at us rather oddly and said if we didn’t see a roo in the next few hours, we needed new specs. It wasn’t 5 minutes later they were in front of our deck. Throughout our stay, dozens of kangaroos would pass by.

There were also flocks of cockatoos that liked the eucalyptus outside our deck.  We would watch them as they stripped the leaves and small branches off the trees while the kangaroos scavenged the dropped leaves below.  The cabins on both sides of us would feed the cockatoos from their decks and sometimes a cockatoo would land on our railing as we ate dinner outside – only two feet away at most!

Saturday, March 24

This morning we woke to pouring rain and it continued until noon. We ventured out and drove to MacKenzie Waterfall.  There were a network of marked tracks, but you basically had the option of descending down 250 steps to the bottom of the falls, or walk the more level track to the overlook.  Neither of the tracks were all that long so we did both.  The falls had a lot of water and were beautiful.  There were lots of people at the base of the falls, yet we only saw one other family on the track to the overlook.

On the route back to Halls Gap we took the road to Reeds Lookout and the Balconies.  Reeds Lookout is basically a drive-up, making it a great stop for families with young children or elderly.  The Balconies required about 20-30 minutes of walking along the ridge and through some forest.  The outcrop reminded me of a jaw of some sort of pre-historic animal and it had a very panoramic view of the valley.

We still had plenty of time, so we also drove to Baroka Lookout. It had 2 viewpoints but neither one of them required more than 3 minutes of walking from the carpark.  The views from here were a little different than those at Reeds and The Balconies.  Here, you looked over the town of Halls Gap and along Fyans Valley, all the way to the reservoir and the dam.  We could see where the meadow was behind our campground.

So although our day was cut short by the weather, we made the best of it.

Sunday, March 25

There is a loop walk from Halls Gap to The Pinnacle Lookout. It takes 5 or more hours and has a lot of elevation gain.  I noticed most of the scenic areas along it were between (or near) the Wonderland carpark and the lookout itself.  It would still take about 2 hours and have some elevation gain, but that was a more palatable option.  There was also one highlight to be seen close to Halls Gap, but we decided we could do this independently of the full 5-hour loop.

Starting from Wonderland carpark, we headed the direction of the Grand Canyon.  This was a gorgeous area and I would advise anyone who doesn’t have the energy to get to The Pinnacle, at least go explore the Grand Canyon!  It’s a gorgeous area with beautiful Rock Walls and views.  The tracks here are very well done with huge flat boulders lined up in stair-like fashion and there are handrails at strategic places that are more exposed.  I loved that the railings were sinewy and not straight lines.

From there the track kept ascending and one area is called, “Silent Street”.  It had rock walls on either side and continuous stairs through the continually narrowing gorge.  As we were getting close to the point of emerging, I felt the need to put my jacket on and we saw another hiker coming down with his coat tightly pulled around him. He warned us of the conditions stating, “Get ready to be blown off”.  Yep, it was incredibly windy and very exposed.  We made our way to the lookout but really couldn’t enjoy it.  We just held on to our cameras and took a few quick shots.  A woman was there who had come from the other carpark; she didn’t stay long either!

At this point, it started sprinkling.  We knew of a protected area in Silent Street (where I put on my jacket) that would be protected from the rain.  However, I wasn’t keen on going back the way we came through Silent Street, because my knees aren’t good on descending long and steep stairways.  We knew there was another way back that was a bit longer, and hopefully, gentler.  And we hoped that the sprinkles wouldn’t become a hard rain.  So we went for it.  It turned out to be a good decision.

Once back at the carpark, it was sunny and beautiful.  We had our lunch in the car before heading off by foot to Splinter Falls.  The Falls were half an hour away and a lot of descent.  This made me really glad we didn’t decide to do the hike all the way from Halls Gap!  Although a beautiful walk, Splinter Falls was nothing more than a trickle.

We went back to our cabin.  It was our last day in the Grampians so we had some packing to do. The wind just got worse and worse, even blowing our deck furniture around.  The upside was that because it was Sunday, all the families with kids were gone.  Our deck overlooked a small grassy area with a playground to the right and the kangaroos would graze there.  With kids at the playground, about twelve kangaroos at the most, would show up.  This evening with the kids gone, we had 35 outside our deck!

Monday, March 26

Today, we had all day to make our way back to Melbourne airport.

We decided to do a couple of short, easy walks in the valley. First was Fyans Creek Loop.  It was a nice loop with bridge crossings and tracks on both sides of the creek.  We saw our first herd of deer here.  We also saw a marsupial – too small to be a kangaroo, but the face wasn’t that of a wallaby either.  At the Cultural Center, we saw a flyer about an endangered black-faced Kangaroo and we think it was that.  Neither of us got a photo and I regret that.  By now, we had so many photos of wallabies and kangaroos, we didn’t bother.

Next was the track to Venus Baths.  This was a feature of the Pinnacle Loop walk.  You can do a loop to the baths, one track is rugged and natural, and the other is asphalt and goes through a Botanical Garden (which sorry to say, is rather dilapidated).  The baths had some signboards showing people a hundred years ago, bathing in them.  The “baths” were so pretty!

When we were chatting it up with the lady at Wines @ Tilly, she recommended a couple of wineries near the town of Great Western. We decided to do her recommendation of the tour and tasting at Seppelt Cellars.  It was a huge facility and we ended up on a private tour of the tunnels dug beneath it.  We came to find out that they only make sparkling wines and none of the production was done there.  It had been turned into a venue to be rented out and they kept the tasting and tours for visitors.  The tunnels were hand-dug and there were a lot of interesting stories around the winery and tunnels.  One story was of a famous opera singer at the turn of the century (Nellie Melba, in whose name Melba Gully was named) who wanted to bathe in champaign.  The owner of Seppelt at the time was game to make it happen and it took 152 bottles of the stuff to fill the bathtub.  It turned out that Melba didn’t like the feel of the bubbles and the bath was too cold, so she got out after only a minute or two. Not wanting 152 bottles of bubbly go to waste – legend has it they rebottled and sold it under a special label.  Can you imagine?  YUCK!

Two of the sparkling wines we tasted were sparking Shiraz. Fred offered space in his suitcase so we brought two bottles home for Wine Wednesdays!

The rest of the drive was uneventful and luckily our flight home was uneventful as well.  We had a wonderful time.  Australia is a big place, so there may be another trip there in our future.