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Published: June 17th 2017
01 Birds
Cockatoos and Corellas outside our cabin happily eating the bird food.Geo: -37.1414, 142.519
It wasn't easy to sleep-in this morning, as outside the cabin the native birds were making a racket. We decided to get up and feed them. It was just after 7am and the sun had just risen, but it was still cold, so I layered up. We hand fed them and also threw food on the ground. A brave cockatoo sat on my shoulder in the hope of getting more food than the others. I was glad that I was wearing my jacket, otherwise I would have a few decent scratches. I was more comfortable with the rosella perched on my back than the larger birds. We spent about ten minutes feeding the very greedy birds and it was fun. There were Cockatoos, Corellas and Eastern Rosellas.
We went back into the cabin and had our breakfast. Then we prepared ourselves for some hikes and got in the car and drove towards town. It was now about 8am. On the way we stopped at the Brambuk Centre. It wasn't yet open, so we walked around the grounds and took a few photos of wallabies, kangaroos and emus freely roaming around. We were even lucky enough to see female kangaroos
02 Cabin
Paul feeding the birds outside our cabin. with joeys in their pouches.
It was now time to start exploring the Grampians National Park - the reason we came to this area. This is one of my favourite places in Victoria. The national park is full of hikes of all degrees of difficulty. There are plenty of waterfalls and amazing views to see. We entered the national park from the centre of town.
We drove through the national park in a northern direction to the MacKenzie Falls carpark. There was an option of doing an easy walk to a lookout point of the falls, we choose to walk down to the base of MacKenzie Falls. It was a 2km hike and it took us about an hour all up.
At the first lookout point the view wasn't that great. It seemed like there wasn't a lot of water flowing over the rocks at the moment. Although there was a great view of the surrounding hilly national park. We continued walking down many wet, slippery steps and then finally arrived at the base of the falls.
The falls seemed more impressive from the base than the first lookout point. We spent about forty-five minutes at the base enjoying the
03 Cabin
I am feeding the birds. view, climbing over rocks and taking many photos.
Back in the car we drove for about ten minutes and parked at the Reed Lookout carpark. There were great views from the carpark, so we took a few photos here and then kept walking. From the carpark it was a very short walk to the Reed Lookout. From here we could see mountains covered in eucalyptus trees, valleys and Lake Wartook.
From the Reed Lookout we continued our hike to The Balconies, a well-known lookout in the national park. This was also a short, 2km return and an easy walk. The path lead us through a stringy bark forest. At The Balconies there was an amazing view of Victoria Valley and interesting rock formations.
Our next stop for the day was the Boroka Lookout carpark. From the carpark it was a few minutes walk to two lookout points. The view was of Halls Gap and Lake Bellfield. It was now just after midday and we felt proud with ourselves that we have seen so much already.
We then got back in the car and it was a short drive to our next stop at the Wonderland carpark. From here there were
04 Bird on my Shoulder
This brave cockatoo sat on my shoulder. many hiking options. We choose to do the Grand Canyon Loop. This was another short walk (my favourite type!). As we walked along we were surrounded by high rocky walls. This was a fun walk for me because I enjoyed climbing over rocks, although there were too many hand and guard rails, it was a bit over the top.
When we arrived back in the carpark we followed the signs for Turret Falls. It was a short walk to the falls. Along the way we had great views. Stony Creek flows into these falls. Turret Falls did not have much water cascading into the falls, just a few trickles. We then walked back to the car.
It was about half past two when we left the national park and were back in Halls Gap. I had to stop the car at the local footy oval to take a photo. There were kangaroos busy grazing all over the oval - this sight to me was still a novelty.
We drove towards Lake Fyans, it was a scenic drive through the countryside. Paul really wanted to do some fishing and that is why we came here. I was more than happy to
05 Rosella
Then a rosella landed on my back. relax and lucky for me there were plenty of kangaroos to photograph. The lake had a good amount of water in it and there weren't many other people around at all. Paul immediately began to cast the rod into the lake and I went for a little walk. I had a feeling that the kangaroos here aren't as tame as the ones we have seen in town and they were also larger, so I didn't get too close to them. We were only here for about an hour and decided to come back again during our stay.
It was now time to go back to our cabin to relax, eat and drink.
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