Day 16: Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Grampians National Park

We spent today in the Grampians, kind of a low key day. They'd predicted a lightning storm in the afternoon, so we didn't want to be out hiking at that point, so we planned to hike in the morning and then relax in the afternoon. First, though, we had a large breakfast at the hotel. We'd missed dinner the night before so we were hungry. They had out on a table cereal, toast and canned fruit, so we both got a bunch of stuff. Then the woman came by and asked if we wanted poached eggs, bacon, and tomatoes. We both said yes. I'd forgotten that they do breakfast this way. The poached eggs were yummy and I quite liked the tomato. We were both full when we left.

Ellen along the Pinnacles trail

We had scoped out a hike the night before, so we drove off to the Sundial Car Park and headed toward the Pinnacles, about a 1.2 km hike out. Before we started out, we heard this amazing birdcall, it was long and complicated and sounded like the classic tropical bird sound. We saw the bird, it was quite large and looked a little like an owl. Walendo thinks it's a kukabarra. Absorbed in that, we ended up going out on the wrong trailhead, but it circled back to the right place, so we were okay. This trail was more rocky and lined with bushes rather than the tall Eucalyptis trees we'd seen elsewhere. There were a lot of rock steps to climb and some nice lookouts from boulders protruding along the way. At one point we lost our way until we noticed the bright orange arrows along the path. Actually, we didn't find them, another couple also wandered off the path the same place we did and they retraced the path and found them for us.

Rock formations on the Pinnacles trail

About 20 minutes into it or so we came to some huge boulders that looked like it had melted and formed into waves of rock, a cool effect. The trail took us up the boulders and out to a large flattish rock surface that went across the top of the peak, about 100 yards around. The top of the trail is an outcropping with a little platform on it, and it looks out over the valley below. It was a nice enough view, but we both liked all the strange rock formations across the top of the mountain. There were lots of rounded boulders to climb on, and plenty of people settled on various ones all around. The trail had been fairly quiet, but there were plenty of people up at the top wandering about.

Bird screaming for its partner on top of Pinnacles trail

Bird gets what it wants

I climbed up onto one rock and found myself near another couple that seemed to be having a reconciliation talk. He seemed to have hurt her feelings or something and was trying to explain why he'd done what he did, and she was willing to listen. I couldn't really hear much of it, but I could tell from the tone of voice and their body position. As I sat there looking out, I heard this loud screetching noise coming from a large black bird at the top of a tree on one of the boulders nearby. I pulled out my zoom lens and got a few pictures of it. Then a second bird joined it, and they started screetching in tandem, it was amusing. Meanwhile, Walendo was cruising around on the rocks checking out the formations and eventually I joined him.

Ellen sitting on rock bar stool

We saw some rock formations that looked like a bunch of bar stools, so we took a picture with me sitting on one drinking my water. We decided to sit for a while and read, so we found some comfortable rocks and relaxed. After a while it started getting windy, so we figured we should head back. The hike back was pretty quick, easier going down than up, as always.

After that we wanted to find a nice place to sit and read that would be closer to the car, so we looked on the map and then headed for Silverbend Falls, which was just 700 meters from the car park. We started down the path and about halfway there, someone pointed out a koala bear sitting in a tree just above. Delighted I had my tripod with me, I took out the zoom and took lots of shots of it. They're better than the ones I took in Tower Hill because the setting was nice and we think it was a younger or at least a stronger bear.

Koala along trail

The first one looked a little cut up or something. Other people were watching it too, and one German man asked me what shutter speed I was at. I was at 1/15th with the lens as open as it got. He and his wife watched for a while longer, and then when I'd taken a lot, asked if he could borrow my tripod. I was happy to let him use it. He had a bag with about a half dozen lenses but he'd left his tripod back at the car. I felt like I'd been rewarded for schlepping around the tripod everywhere I went. (The one time I'd not brought it early in the trip, I'd regretted it, so I brought it on all hikes from then on.) He took a bunch of shots and we did a little camera talk and then we continued on.

Silverband Falls

About five minutes later we got to the waterfall, which was a pretty narrow stream of water hugging the edge of a vertical rock. There was no pool of water at the bottom, so it must have gone underground, emerging at a stream we'd seen down the path. I took a few shots of the waterfall, and the German couple arrived as I was doing so. He was walking around scouting out another spot to take pictures but concluded that the spot I was in was the only real good one. That was nice to have a scout like that. :-) I offered my tripod again but he said he didn't need it this time. Our goal had been to sit and read by the waterfall, but the area wasn't that big and it was getting a lot of traffic, so it didn't seem like a good place. We walked back instead. We chatted with the German couple as we walked. They're in Australia for a month, and they'd been here two years before, so they must like it. He said he didn't like Melbourne that much and Adelaide wasn't that pretty (as they say it is), but he liked Sydney. He especially liked Tasmania, and his wife said it was prettier than the mainland. Once again, I regretted not going there, but still, you can't do everything and we've certainly enjoyed what we've done so far.

When we got back to the car, Walendo was hungry for lunch (I was still digeseting the large breakfast) so we drove back to Halls Gap and he got himself a burger, which he ate at a picnic table in the park opposite the small row of stores. It had all sorts of stuff on it, including egg, bacon, pineapple, and cheese. Meanwhile, I checked out the place that advertised Devonshire Tea, asking a bunch of naive questions. Devonshire Tea is two scones with jam and clotted cream with tea or coffee — perfect. I asked when they served it and she said you could order it any time, really. I'd been wanting to have scones for a while, so I figured we'd come back later.

Aboriginal Center

First, though, we went to check out the Aboriginal Center near the Ranger Station. The outside of the building was interesting, designed to look like a bird in flight. The inside, though, turned out to be a little disappointing. I was expecting to see some displays explaining the culture, art, and way of living, but mostly it was a shop and a cafe, with just a few photos on the wall leading up to the cafe. They had a small theater with some information on the walls, but there were no times for when the movie played. There was also a large room set up like an auditorium and the walls were lined with photos of people, probably the Aboriginal people who were part of forming this center. It said there were five communities of peoples who contributed to it. There was also some art work, baskets and weapons, but not really set out in a display. I dunno, it seemed odd. After looking at all I could find, I went to the shop and bought myself a t-shirt with Aboriginal art on it. I like the dot-style paintings. Walendo bought a couple of didjeridoo CDs, one of music and another one giving instruction on how to play.

Ellen enjoying Devonshire Tea

Then we headed back over to town and had Devonshire Tea and the Flying Emu cafe. Wow, was that good. The warm scones were *so* good, perfectly flavored with the scones and cream. The cream especially was yummy. Geez, what dopes we've been for not having tea more often. It was a huge amount of food, though, so we're figuring we'll skip dinner, maybe I'll get an ice cream later. Now that's a good food day: a big breakfast of cereal and poached eggs, scones with jam & clotted cream, and chocolate ice cream!

Walendo delighting in his Devonshire Tea

After tea, we went back to the room. The storm still hadn't materialized, though it was still quite windy. We went into one of the sitting rooms and read for a while, then came back to the room. I've been planning out the route into Melbourne (we have to find our hotel) and doing housekeeping tasks like uploading the pictures and writing in this journal. Walendo finished his book and is taking a nap. So far this trip (16 days) we've taken 1026 photos with the digital camera. And I've shot over 18 rolls of 36 exposure film with my good camera, more than 650 shots. Wowee!

...

Field of kangaroos

After relaxing a while longer, we went out to the tiny town to get a little more to eat (I got my ice cream) before the shops closed. Then we went back to the trail behind the Ranger Station to see some more kangaroos and such. We saw a wallaby in about the same place we'd seen one last night, maybe it was the same one. Then right on the path about 10 yards away was a large kangaroo that popped up to check us out. We started back for a while, then when it went down to munch on grass some more, we got on our knees and put our heads down to the ground to mimic it.

Kangaroo smiling at us

It didn't seem that interested any more. After a while we continued on and came to the helicopter landing area, a large round field, and there were about a dozen kangaroos munching away. We gradually moved closer and closer and stood and watched for about 15 minutes. It seemed like the larger kangaroos ate at the borders of the circle and the smaller ones were on the inside, which was either a good strategy or a coincidence. Every now and then one of them would pop up to look at us, but mostly they were busy eating dinner. They really are adorable, like huge bunnies. The tails look gigantic, a solid cord of muscle, pretty handy for balance and transport. Kind of like having a fifth leg. When we'd had our fill, we walked back. When we came to the spot where the first kangaroo had been, he had moved even closer to the path, so we walked by slowly and came within about 5 feet, and it didn't seem to mind. It stood there looking at us for a while, almost seeming to smile at us, and then went back to its eating. How cool.

After that, we went back to the room and read and hung out until bedtime. Tomorrow we head to Melbourne.

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