Blogs from Grampians, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 3

Sydney est comme on se l'imagine : un magasin de boomerang au coin de la rue et la police montée qui chevauche des kangourous! Une de ces allégations est vraie...Plus sérieusement, le pays et ces habitants nous semblent accueillants. Les gens s'arrêtent facilement dès qu'il vous voient remuer la carte dans tous les sens. Nous sommes impressionnés par la tranquillité de Sydney : peu de voitures, peu de gens. Et puis on fait les comptes et on comprend...Un pays grand comme disons une fois et demi l' Europe pour un tiers de la population de La France! A ce tarif là moi aussi je serais accueillant. Un petit tour au magasin de matos histoire de se ravitailler en corde, chaussons d'escalade (ma cinquième paire depuis le début du voyage), et magnésie. Le dollar fait mal...400$ pour ... read more

Back to Melbourne for a day and then off to the Arapiles Ranges camping with Bec’s brother, Owen. It was great to get away from cities again and out in the wide open spaces. An outdoors nut, Owen wanted to show us how to rock climb and abseil. Two days we learned the ropes (no pun intended) and challenged ourselves to break through the fear. We were due to stay 4 nights, but the forecast of rain is not a good thing for rock climbers. So back to Melbourne we went.... read more

Hey Friends, I just got back from Araps last night. I sure know what 'travel weary' means now. Or maybe I don't, I haven't been gone that long and haven't travelled that far from Natimak to get back to Melbourne. I was pretty glad to check into this hotel off a park in Melbourne though, have a real shower and sleep in a real bed. Three weeks in a tent with varying amounts of sleeping mattress (I went through 3 sleeping mats, sortof) and infrequent showers combined with physical activity in the sun everday and then add on top of that the stress and relief of rock climbing. I'm proud to say I never got the shakes while climbing while I was there though. Just intense sweating of the hands and then lots of chalk. Anyways, ... read more

We crossed the SA/Vic border without great fanfare and headed into The Grampians via Horsham and Wartook Valley. We made camp at Smith Mill camp ground. It was a great site with a fire place (with a swivel hotplate) and picnic table and plenty of room for us to set up our full annex (awning with walls). We did this because it looked like rain was heading our way and the forecast was for wet and windy conditions during the weekend. It was great having a fire place again and being able to use it. Cape Arid in WA was the last time we had a camp fire. We had plenty of wood as the only other group of campers there when we arrived decided to leave due to the expected bad weather, leaving us all ... read more

Hey everyone!! Hope you are all doing well!! So last weekend we went up to a mountain range about 3 hours from Melbourne called the Grampians. We drove our sweet ass ride up there (our 1998 Hyundai Excel) to visit with one of Trents dads friends, named Mark. He lives on an acreage near a small town called Pomonal. We had a great ride up, seen some kangaroos, and lots of birds, and arrived at Marks friday evening. He lives with his girlfriend, Sue, and her daughter. Its a very laid back place, not much to do except sit on the deck and relax. It was great to get out of the city! On Saturday we went in to a town about 10 minutes away from Marks place to visit Sue at her workplace, she owns ... read more