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Published: January 6th 2010
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Day 253 - Halls Gap
We have a birthday shout out to our beautifully gorgeous but completely insane neice today! Happy Birthday Tash, hope you have a great day! lots of love from both of us x x x What a pleasure it is to be woken up by Kookaburras this morning, their glorious singing voices just ringing out all over the place and at a reasonable hour. They’re obviously been well trained.
We’re first up so I make use of the free power in the BBQ area and crack on with the blogs. After only half an hour I am forced to retreat inside from the already blaringly hot sun and its only 8am!
With Darryl’s listening assistance we got a couple of the blogs uploaded. We’ve got into a routine now where he listens while I read and make updates as we go along to ensure we have something that reflects how our day went. Reading them out loud does get rid of some grammar mistakes … but not all. I’d need my old proof reader, Mrs Coulsell, to get them perfect. I know love, less of the ‘old’!
The Reeves are at
A happy band of walkers
Darryl, Mark, Beth, Simone, Zoe and Ken are raring to go. it again this morning providing us with poached eggs on toast, what heroes and how tasty. We scoffed them down despite having only just eaten cereal; honestly this is better than a 4 star hotel.
Everyone did their own thing for most of the morning but one specific activity (other than breakfast) always brings us together, a game of Rummikub. One game was followed by another and another and another until we called a truce as we were sick of the battering by the Reeves ladies. They’ve gotten good, especially Zoe! We obviously need more practice.
With all this beautiful scenery around us we decided to go for a bit of exploration and with a full compliment of water bottles we set off in the direction of the short walk to Venus Baths. It’s a very pleasant wander through the lower part of the Wonderland section of the Grampians, lots of trees and plenty of rustling in the bushes. The reward at the end of the walk is a series of small pools with water cold enough to refresh the most remote of nether regions. The kids dipped their toes but nobody was game enough for a complete
dunking although Kenny nearly got one courtesy of Darryl for just ‘being Kenny’.
The boys headed back to camp with Beth & Ken, their intention was to go collect wood for another fire tonight followed by a bit of fishing in the nearby lake. Myself, Simone and Zoe set off on the walk to Splitter Falls which soon had me puffing & panting on the steep steps while Zoe practically ran on ahead. She’s a natural walker, runner, swimmer - you name it, she’s pretty darn good and she’s only 11.
At this stage I hadn’t purchased the walking trails guide for the area, had I done so we would have known that Splitter Falls is ‘best seen after rain’ so we can be forgiven for thinking we hadn’t quite arrived at our destination when we were presented with a series of rocks and a mere trickle of water rather than ‘falls’! We walked on for a further 10 minutes but Simone concluded ‘that must have been it’ so we turned around and headed back down.
Another of Zoe’s great attributes is her ability to spot wildlife. To my credit I spotted a legless lizard on the
way into Venus Baths but nobody else saw it so I couldn’t back it up. However, with Zoe’s prompt we all got to see an Echidna which I was very excited about. The Reeves have echidnas on their property back home (how thrilling!) but this one was a first for me and I think I must have said ‘Oooohh, look at it’s funny nose’ about a million times! Next up was a stumpy tail lizard, another regular for the Reeves and a lesson for me because they have been previously referred to in the blog as blue tongue lizards … which apparently they are not!
We got back to camp surprised to see the boys sitting with Beth & Ken, Simone had the car keys so they hadn’t been able to go fishing but quickly gathered their assortment of equipment and jumped in the car.
I cracked on with more blog updates, Zoe had a snooze while Simone prepared dinner. When all that was finished we got back together for more games of Rummikub and Zoe has officially been proclaimed as the travelling champion winning 3 out of 4 games. Simone walked away empty handed which is just
unheard of.
During the game, Simone noticed a change in the colour of the dishwashing liquid which had been sitting out on the table. Initially she thought young Ken had done another ‘bubbles galore’ trick and used the lot replacing the cleaning fluid with water but it wasn’t that. The liquid was green but now it’s clear. How’s that happened? It’s a mystery and Zoe suggests it’s because it’s been left out in the sun. None of us can be sure, it’s an experiment in waiting.
The boys plus Beth returned from the fishing trip and although it was with an empty bucket, they were quick to tell us that Ken did catch two but they weren’t big enough to eat so they threw them back in. Darryl however didn’t have any luck at all snapping his rod yet again with the very first cast! We’re now down to one snapped rod instead of two.
Dinner was delicious and was another all round achievement cooked by the Reeves. Caesar Salad with a mixture of meats meant we certainly had full stomachs by the end of it. We sat around the fire for a few hours but as
we’re all moving on tomorrow an early night was required. We definitely need to be up early as we’ve promised to take Zoe and Ken for a bit of a hike, so the alarm is set for 6am!
Sleep well
Dar and Sar
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Jan Kettle
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'Winter' Wonderland
I thought I could be clever and add a photo to this comment but never mind - imagine a white winter 'wonderland' and transport yourselves back to Moira. We haven't built the snowman yet though! xxx Mum