Drive to The Grampians

In June 2005 we had a holiday in The Grampians.

Friday

In the morning we take Dad to work, and then rush to get ready. Things have to be packed, last minute CD recording is required (which repeatedly fails), and lots of other last minute tasks need to be done. I have my hair cut.

We also visit Grandma who is in hospital and due to come out next Tuesday. She is very negative about her progress (she doesn't believe us when we say she has improved), and doesn't want us to go. We have to leave while she is eating lunch. Hopefully she continues eating after we have left. At the last minute before leaving the hospital, Mum remembers to get the E-Tag for the city link from Phillip.

Eventually, we are already to leave, and at 2pm we leave. It is a long drive and we arrive at the Halls Gap after dark. We go looking for our accommodation "Grampian Lodges", but can't find it. After going backwards and forwards several times, eventually I realize we should be looking for "Grampian Chalets" which we quickly find without any problems. It was then a matter of finding the office. Eventually we found it, at the back with an unlit sign that we had been unable to identify in the dark.

Saturday

In the morning, we go on short work. We are almost finished when we pass a walking track of to the left to ‘Boronia Peak’. Just a small detour. We follow this track until the top of the peak. On the way, we pass a group of approx 50 tourists heading down the mountain. When we get to the top, we find a spectacular view and take lots of photos.

We are just about to head down, when Dad suggests we go “just a little bit further”. This turns out to add considerably to our ‘short’ and ‘easy’ walk to the extent that it become ‘difficult’ and ‘long’. Eventually we made it to the ‘real’ Boronia Peak and had an even better view.

Unfortunately we failed to take any lunch with us (it was meant to be a short walk), so we had lunch when we got back (between 2pm and 3pm).

In the afternoon we had a short walk to the tourist centre that really was a short walk. We saw lots of kangaroos and one deer. The are lots of kangaroos here (too many?), and they are keeping the grass nice and short.

Mum decided it was better to go clockwise then anti-clockwise, and that turning left was preferred over turning right. This is because nobody else was willing to make the critical decision.

For tea that night we went to the restaurant at Grampians. I had Mango chicken. It was nice. It was also spicy.

I noticed that the clock on the camera was set for daylight savings, after realizing this I left camera set incorrectly.

Sunday

We go on another walk. This is labelled ‘medium’ and meant to be easier then the Boronia peak walk. It was harder then the Boronia peak walk as it kept going on and on, with constant up hills and constant down hills.

On the way we also saw an enable. Mum thought it looked like a goat, Dad thought it was a hairy deer. They failed to reach an agreement on what it was.

Dad tried to motivate us by saying “its all downhill from here”, but that usually meant the next uphill was going to be even steeper and longer then the last. Eventually he said “if a ball rolls down the hill then it is downhill; if it rolls up the hill then it is an uphill”. By his definition all hills in the Grampians were downhills. This was small comfort to us who had to climb the hills.

Later on Dad said he didn't mind if he got a lift going to work or coming back from work, as either way is ‘downhill’ the mountain.

Eventually we got to the destination, the start of the tunnel. We had lunch (preheated soup we ate from organic milk containers) and had started the long journey back when Dad said he wanted to see the top of the mountain. My legs refused to go any further, so Mum and Dad left me to watch the birds for 45 minutes. Eventually they got back and we started on the long and painful journey back to the car. As a concession Dad went to the car and drove it to us at the end of the track while we watched the Kangaroos in the area.

We had too had a big fast food chain (Kidnapper’s Fake Chicken?) on the way through Ararat and got home at about 9pm.