Day 32 - 7/1/14 –– Jimmy Creek Camp Ground, Grampians National Park

I awoke to the sound of the wind in the trees so was initially a bit disappointed but whilst strolling to the ablutions block I could see that what clouds were in the sky were all very low and somewhat likely to be ‘burnt off’ as  we got into the day. It wasn’t long before we were heading into Halls Gap and the information centre to find out about what we could accomplish in one day at the Grampians! I had looked at the general brochure and decided that there were 4 or 5 places that they had photos of so they must be the most spectacular, the certainly looked that way, so we will put them at the top of our list and see how we go.

We managed to get a somewhat informative map and headed off to our first port of call, the balconies for a look. As De drove up our first hill, (Yeah – we left the caravan at the camp site so I don’t have to drive today!!!!) the rain started to come down and the wind started to blow! While we had spray jackets packed looking over cloud covered valleys in the rain isn’t really what I had pictured. A few minutes later the rain had cleared, and while the wind was blowing the cloud was clearing (yep a few minutes later) so we did the 2k (return) walk to the balconies which was pretty cool. Along the pathway somebody at some stage had decided to stack a few rocks on top of each other (somehow in my mind it is a Tibetan thing) so a few hundred other people had joined them in creating these little and not so little stacks that, while completely unnatural, looked pretty cool.

The Balconies looked to the west over a huge slab of the national park with other stark peaks to the south and west but a huge gently undulating area of wooded forest in between.

We had a fair bit to cover so we headed back but were slightly distracted by a uniquely shapped rock that I thought may look Ok in a picture, that led to other action shots etc...

We headed to Mackenzie falls, and while we are far from waterfalled out, we had done two pretty impressive ones in the last week so it only just made it onto the touring route. On the way to the base of Mackenzie Falls we went to the lookout for Broken Falls and I was starting to doubt my decision.

Broken Falls

After 254 steps down we were standing in front of what was a pretty awesome set of falls. Due to the rain that had been falling over the last few days it was really flowing as created an awesome spectacle. It was about 30 m high and 30 m wide with a couple of big drops. As we got to the bottom the sun peaked its head out from behind the clouds and the light that caught in the mist made it even more spectacular.

After some photos we pulled out the sandwiches and within a few seconds the local Kookaburra was stalking us. I think he must have read the ‘Don’t feed the animals’ signs as  two bites later he did a big bombing raid and snatched ¼ of a cheese and vege sandwich out of De’s hand as she was putting it to her mouth! It was a bit of a laugh but suddenly our picnic lunch took on the appearance of a poker game. At the end I tried to get a good photo of the kookaburra flying across the falls using Sam’s crust as payment but he beat me to it and tried to take half of Sam’s finger for desert!

I am not sure if it will work on all kids but we had found the best way to get kids to the top of a really big set of steps is to get them to count them on their way up. Distraction, rhythm, fun...not sure what it is but I wish I had know about it when we climbed Mt Kosciusko! We headed off to Boroka Lookout which was required an extremely strenuous 20m walk from Izzy! One amazing thing about the Grampians is that they just appear out of nowhere. All around it is completely flat farmland and the BANG, are these huge mountains with craggy rock faces and sheer cliffs.  Whilst the Balconis had looked west over the rest of the park Boroka looked east over the amazing expanse of farmland that extends out through Stawell and beyond. I reckon if I had tee’d a 3 iron of the lookout it would have landed outside in the paddock next to the park, it is that stark, even with my worse than terrible golf swing!

We had left the best for last and the 4km return walk to the pinnacles was so much better than all of the others. There was very little gravel track and a lot of required you to be rock hopping from boulder to boulder up make shift rock steps until we reached the summit. If you have ever wondered what a summit looks like this is the one to try. On the very top of a very step cliff face is an outcrop that reaches for the sky. Even though there are enough metal bars and wire on the balustrades to keep the post card bandit in my legs were still really wobbly as we got to the very top. Even though there were quite a few other people at the pinnacle everybody waited for each group to go up and come down before taking their turn. Maybe they were being polite or maybe they were just scared that it was going to collapse if there was too much weight on the end.

There was another spot for an awesome photo that the boys and I took an opportunity of. It looks bloody scary, and even after I had been out there and seen that it was very very safe, while we had a bite to eat, watching other people sitting in the same position made my guts turn!

Don't look MeMe Ma or Nana!

We headed back to Izzy and then to camp for a well earned rest. We had some new neighbours, who had two 5yr old girls, that were also Doin’ the Block, so we had a few drinks with them after dinner and thanks to the day’s activities sleep was not hard to find!