Mount Sturgeon and Mount Abrupt. If they'd been in England would it have been called Sturgeon Pike? What a Plaice that would be!
Kylie got up late; she apologised for appearing out her room just after 11am. Apparently she'd woken up just after 9am ... and then went back to sleep again! D'oh!
Although invited to come with us, John declined, which I think was a good thing, after all I hardly knew him and I was here to meet Kylie. We eventually all departed anyway at roughly the same time - midday. (Bizarrely just in time to see James come back for lunch; he was a tad surprised to see us!)
We were indeed headed to the Grampian Mountains. They're not as far off as the coast, only about 30km from Hamilton to the village of Dunkeld, which is right on the edge of teh mountains. On the way we stopped at the foot of Mounts Sturgeon and Abrupt, for the view. The Grampians actually start pretty abruptly; three sides around Dunkeld are pretty flat!
It's about 60km from Dunkeld to the town of Halls Gap, which is generally regarded as being the centre of the mountains, even though it does in fact also lie on the edge of them! It's a nice, quaint, little village, full of backpackers/tourists - though I'm not sure what the public transport links are like to get there! The road to it was very pretty, much of it was forested and beyond the trees were the mountains, looming, rough, almost a tad unfriendly - but we figured they'd be excellent for rock-climbing. We noted several places en route that we made a mental suggestion to come back to, should we have time.
It was quite cold weather up in Halls Gap. There was mist and cloud at the top of some of the peaks, and it felt a bit chilly when we stepped out of the car to go for a walk. But Kylie figured that the walk would warm us up.
We didn't actually walk that far really, just a round trip of a couple of kms. It was really nice to be in the countryside here; it felt very clear and fresh. We walked along a small stream to a point where it flowed nicely over a series of smooth slabs of marble-like stone. These were called the "Venus Baths", quite simple but still quite nice.
We walked from there back to the car park, and then into the town centre. Apparently, every time she comes here, Kylie always has an ice-cream; indeed she has been known to come all the way out here purely for that reason! But we didn't do that yet; we had a bit of a hot snack first! kangaroo souvlaki kebab/tortilla; kangaroo's a bit chewy, a bit like beef, or more 'gamey'.
We did a bit of souvenir shopping too. It was a nice location for shops; it reminded me of the sort of area round a Lake District youth hostel. The shops themseleves looked like they were based on the design of log cabins. We had a look in several; Kylie suggested if I were to buy souvenirs in Australia then this would be the best place to do it. So I had a look around and bought lots of junk, including (of course) a boomerang and a small digeridoo!!
Only then did we have an ice-cream, a cone with two (Kylie) or three (me) scoops of different flavours - it took me a while to eat mine!! I'm sure there's something really odd about eating an ice-cream up in mountains in the middle of winter but, hey I'm on holiday and that's what the locals do so who am I to complain?!
We took a slower ride back to Hamilton, visiting the spots we passed by on the way out. Whilst still in Halls Gap we passed by a few grazing kangaroos, semi-wild, which was interesting - we could drive up right next to them and they just looked at us strangely!
Our first stop-off were the Silverband Falls, just off the main road. This involved a 700m trek through the forest (Kylie wondered how many steps there would be but there weren't any!), to a slightly odd waterfall. Water flowed from above, and then disappeared! It appeared to filter through a series of pebbles/stones, and then drop underground; presumably though in wetter weather the whole base of the falls would be underwater. Certainly along the path there was what looked like a dried-up river bed running next to us all the way to the falls.
A little further drive on, we turned off to visit Mount William, a potentially cruel 8-10km drive uphill all the way. Steep uphill. The views we caught sight of on the way up briefly through the trees were very picturesque. The "top" of the mountain though was a bit of an anti-climax - the road ended 8km up the hill in a rather dull parking area, with no view as it was hidden by trees - and the remaining 1.8km to the summit was a "strenuous walk" according to the sign; we couldn't drive it as there was a locked gate across the road! It had taken quite a while to get there too; we weren't sure which summit we were headed to on the way up, and the one we supposed it might be (and indeed was) always seemed to be so far off.
The journey down was a bit more interesting, it was also more fun (Kylie the rally driver!), and disappointingly much quicker. We stopped a couple of times where we could, to admire the view. At one spot the view was very impressive - looking out over Victoria Valley, mountains either side, it was a sea of cloud; it was like being in an aeroplane! And we were the only people around, the only sound was what sounded like falling water - either a waterfall in the trees or rain coming from the clouds, we couldn't decide. Anyway it was very picturesque and really nice!
The third and final place we stopped was Jimmy's Creek, a small stream in a heavily wooded area, apparently with leeches (!). There are also sometimes koalas in the trees but we didn't see any. The spot is a good picnic site, and there were paths leading deep into the forest, but it was getting late by now so we didn't take them.
On the way home, just before Dunkeld, we nearly hit a kangaroo! It was in the middle of the road, just sitting there, but when we got really close, and before I'd had a chance to take its picture, it hopped off.
We didn't do a lot that evening, it was just mainly the three of us. James set up my camcorder so they could both see all the pics that I'd taken since my arrival in Australia - Kylie chose a few from the ones we'd taken together of the waterfalls, so we copied them to James' computer. I also uploaded a few to my website so the folks at work could see them. When I get back I'll do the website properly.