Grampians - Australia
8/2/05
As planned we went whale watching at sunrise and saw four of them swimming around. After enjoying the beautiful sunrise, we headed towards our next destination, the Grampians, the biggest national park in Victoria. On the way, we stopped at Tower Hill, and a very old caldera where is possible to see hundreds of kangaroos...
... emus ...
... and koalas. The latter ones are very difficult to spot. We looked and looked at the trees, but with no luck.
The drive to the Grampians was fast and pleasant, crossing the Australian countryside. In the main town of the park we found an outdoor store where we arranged rock climbing for the afternoon. Just renting the gear was impossible, we had to hire a guide who took us to a rock named the Watch Tower where we did three different climbs.
It was fun but our guide was quite lazy and with or without him would have been the same thing. At least he gave us some restaurant addresses to try kangaroo meat and told us where we could camp for free. We finished climbing around five and rushed to the Reed's Lookout and the Balconies for sunset. From there there are breathtaking views over the Victoria Valley, Lake Wartook and the Mt Difficult Range and the colors of the sunset were unforgettable. It looked like the sky was on fire, amazing...
We could not leave Australia without trying kangaroo, so we ate at the restaurant advised by our guide. The steak was really good and tender, but quite expensive. With the stomach full, we went back outside in the cold and set up the tent a few kilometers away from the town. The spot for camping was in a pitch black forest away from everything. Flavien decided to sleep in the car while we slept in our tent at the sound of the wind blowing the top of the trees and kangaroos walking around the whole night.
8/3/05
We woke up early and were the first customers in the little supermarket where we bought food for the breakfast and the hike. While having breakfast, we were watching the numerous kangaroos jumping around in the fields just next to the car parking, they are everywhere. Then we started the Wonderland loop hike, a 9.6-kilometer trail. The loop crossed forests, rivers, waterfalls, a canyon...(find Flavien on the picture)
...interesting rock formations, like the Silent Street...
... and brought us to the Pinnacle from where we had an amazing view of the entire valley.
Click here for a Panoramic of the valley
Since the hike took us less time than expected, we decided to make a 'little' detour on our way to Yara Valley. Our plan was to get to Philip Island before dawn to get there on time to watch the Penguin Parade.
Philip Island is home to thousands of little penguins (30cm high), called fair penguins, who 'parade' each night, just after sunset, from the water to their burrows on land. They live in couple and take turns watching the cubs while the other goes to the sea for the day. It was really impressive to see them one behind the other coming out of the water and climbing up the dunes. Unfortunately we got caught by a terrible thunderstorm and really heavy rain. We were completely soaked :)
Note that this picture is actually from a movie we watched at the visitor center :)
As planned we went whale watching at sunrise and saw four of them swimming around. After enjoying the beautiful sunrise, we headed towards our next destination, the Grampians, the biggest national park in Victoria. On the way, we stopped at Tower Hill, and a very old caldera where is possible to see hundreds of kangaroos...
... emus ...
... and koalas. The latter ones are very difficult to spot. We looked and looked at the trees, but with no luck.
The drive to the Grampians was fast and pleasant, crossing the Australian countryside. In the main town of the park we found an outdoor store where we arranged rock climbing for the afternoon. Just renting the gear was impossible, we had to hire a guide who took us to a rock named the Watch Tower where we did three different climbs.
It was fun but our guide was quite lazy and with or without him would have been the same thing. At least he gave us some restaurant addresses to try kangaroo meat and told us where we could camp for free. We finished climbing around five and rushed to the Reed's Lookout and the Balconies for sunset. From there there are breathtaking views over the Victoria Valley, Lake Wartook and the Mt Difficult Range and the colors of the sunset were unforgettable. It looked like the sky was on fire, amazing...
We could not leave Australia without trying kangaroo, so we ate at the restaurant advised by our guide. The steak was really good and tender, but quite expensive. With the stomach full, we went back outside in the cold and set up the tent a few kilometers away from the town. The spot for camping was in a pitch black forest away from everything. Flavien decided to sleep in the car while we slept in our tent at the sound of the wind blowing the top of the trees and kangaroos walking around the whole night.
8/3/05
We woke up early and were the first customers in the little supermarket where we bought food for the breakfast and the hike. While having breakfast, we were watching the numerous kangaroos jumping around in the fields just next to the car parking, they are everywhere. Then we started the Wonderland loop hike, a 9.6-kilometer trail. The loop crossed forests, rivers, waterfalls, a canyon...(find Flavien on the picture)
...interesting rock formations, like the Silent Street...
... and brought us to the Pinnacle from where we had an amazing view of the entire valley.
Click here for a Panoramic of the valley
Since the hike took us less time than expected, we decided to make a 'little' detour on our way to Yara Valley. Our plan was to get to Philip Island before dawn to get there on time to watch the Penguin Parade.
Philip Island is home to thousands of little penguins (30cm high), called fair penguins, who 'parade' each night, just after sunset, from the water to their burrows on land. They live in couple and take turns watching the cubs while the other goes to the sea for the day. It was really impressive to see them one behind the other coming out of the water and climbing up the dunes. Unfortunately we got caught by a terrible thunderstorm and really heavy rain. We were completely soaked :)
Note that this picture is actually from a movie we watched at the visitor center :)
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