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| vegged out mary :) |
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| Hi Tim-- I see you trying to peek in the picture! |
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| Lauren and I contemplating whether we should wait in a super long line for a DOVE goodie bag :) |
I have gotten pretty into "the" tennis (not sure why they put a the in front of it but I go with it), I have watched it pretty much every night since we went to the Australian Open. Some times the games can last pretty late so I have also fallen asleep watching "the" tennis almost every night-- luckily Brian stays up to tell me who wins :) The men's singles final is tonight!!! Who do you think will win--- Djokovic or Nadal?!?
Then the following week-- as I was saying earlier-- we had a holiday! HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!
The Grampians are only 3 hours from Melbourne so it was a very easy road trip. We were lucky enough to find a place which allowed dogs so we got to bring along Brody! I was really worried that the place I booked was going to be a huge dump, that it would be maybe a step up from camping. I was soooo pleasantly surprised! The cabin was very comfortable and pretty nice (although, my expectations were REALLY LOW!) Once we got into town (we stayed in Halls Gap, the town right next to the park) we got a quick bite to eat then Brian and I were ready to get our hike on... Brody was ready to get his sleep on, so this worked out really well :) The Grampians are mountain ranges with tons of wildlife and lots of Aboriginal history. It's very rocky and has lots of walks-- some were more difficult than others-- like mountain climbing difficult! 
Our first stop was to see The Balconies. It's a pretty easy walk to see a great view of the rock formation which looks like 2 balconies. On the way there we walked by a group of hundreds of stacked feng shui-like rocks. So Brian and I decided to add a few to the bunch :) It was sadly trickier than I thought to get the rocks to stay where I sat them... so therefore, mine was only 4 rocks tall.
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| I am so ZEN-- Brian is a bit better, ZENNER? |
After including our little addition to the rock garden we hiked on to the balconies!
Please excuse my hair in all the pictures-- it gets a bit windy at the top and my hair is out of control--- some of these pictures, such as the one right here-- not frame worthy :) haha oh well, at that point I didn't care I was REALLY needing the wind because it was super hot! It is finally summer here in Australia and I know I shouldn't complain because I have been dying for some hotter weather but this is ridiculous :) 
After the balconies we set off for our next destination, MacKenzie Falls.
The falls were beautiful and it was definitely worth the thousands of steps down (then back up) we had to do in order to get there! It also gives you a wonderful view while your kicking back relaxing with a million bottles of water after all those steps! :) No really, it was not THAT tiring, it was actually a lovely walk and we both enjoyed all the steps as well as the view once we got to the bottom. I can't think of a better way to celebrate Australia than see some of the amazing scenery!
We wanted to make in one more hike for the day so set off for the Pinnacle! The Pinnacle is very very high up so this was quite the climb up to the top of a mountain! There were so many nice views along the way!
One thing that Brian had heard of was something called the "Nerve test". Basically, along this walk is a super high up, long tapered rock arch. The premise is that you walk out until you lose your nerve and turn back around. Luckily, Brian didn't have too much nerve (and he is well aware that if he attempted to go out too far I would just kill him myself) but is is still very creepy!! YIKES!
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| HOLY SCARY! |
So after all that fun-- we arrived at the pinnacle-- the top of the mountain! It was beautiful and we were soooo high up! I felt like we could see our house in Melbourne-- maybe even Houston from up there :)
Wow! It is so amazing being up there so high! But, alas, it was time to call it a day! We had a puppy back at the cabin, after all! As we were headed back we saw yet another echidna crossing the road! (we saw 2 in Tasmania) I don't know how we are getting so lucky to keep seeing these crazy creatures but they literally keep crossing our path :) We tried to take more pictures but he was sooo shy and every time we tried to get a picture of his face he turned away. Spikey yet cute :)
It was about 7:30 when we got back into Halls Gap and as we looked along the road we saw a HERD of wild kangaroos! They were all grazing in a recreational center-- what looked like a giant soccer field- maybe a footy field? There were at least 50, maybe more.
We did eventually go back to the cabin where we grilled some sausages (or snags- if your australian and want to shorten it!) We had to get our sausage sizzle on considering it was Australia day! We sat out on our front porch the whole evening where we got a great view of the sunset and eventually we saw a herd of kangaroos in the pasture in front of our house! It was amazing! I cannot imagine that seeing kangaroos would ever get old... I am in awe every time I see one! I just love to see them hop around!
How amazing is this view of the sunset-- and the little sliver of the moon.... oh my gosh- I want to go back right now with a glass of wine and my 2 favorite boys (if you consider brody a boy instead of a dog) and just sit there all night. There are not very many cities in Australia and we were in an area with very few towns so it was so incredibly quiet and dark outside. Love it!
When we woke up in the morning we were so excited because the kangaroos were back!
There is Brian and Brody with the roos in the background :)
Off to our hikes of the day! We first headed to Hollow mountain. It was about 40 minutes away -- this is a pretty large national park! And on the way we nearly hit a kangaroo on the road-- scared me to death- I would feel AWFUL if we killed one! AH! Thank God Brian has quick reflexes and dodged it! Here are some pictures of our hike up to the top!
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| what the hell?? I'm supposed to go up there?! |
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| almost there! |
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| a little "puffed" at the top :) |
WE MADE IT!!!!! It was nice and windy up there :) There were lots of tricky maneuvers and we were pretty shocked when the arrows pointed for us to go straight up the cliff! Neither of us were planning on doing serious mountain climbing but it was really fun-- a little scary when the only route was a few feet from a straight down cliff-- but we managed! On the way down we first took a picture of what we thought was the meaning of "hollow" mountain-- a hole in the mountain.....
But then as we treked a few more minutes down we heard people talking--- from what sounded like inside the mountain?!?! We kept walking but curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to see what was in there?! Or was I just imagining it- or what it just the voices of ghosts-- I was a little exhausted so I wasn't sure :)
So we see this little hole in the side of the mountain.....
And some how come to the conclusion to try and enter-- why? I don't know :) But I heard voices and wanted to check it out! Sooooo we squeezed in!!!
I am not sure how we made it but we got inside!!! Then we looked and there was another little sliver of a crack to what seemed like a bigger area (plus that was were the voices were coming from)
So we squeeeeeeezed in through that crack and sure enough there was a bigger cave! It was really neat! Plus Brian has been talking about spelunking (or caving) since we didn't have time for it in Tasmania! Yes, he talks about spelunking :)
I wish I got more pictures of Brian while we were in there but it was a bit tricky climbing around and it was probably best for him to hold our precious camera! Did I mention that we heard voices the whole time we were in the cave and NEVER saw anyone! CREEPY! Maybe it was just the spirit of the mountain :) Maybe not....
Anyways, we made our way back to the bottom! Going down is actually pretty scary because it's harder to get good footing and a lot of areas were pretty steep!!! Yikes!
Once we got all the way down we went to an aboriginal shelter. A rock covering where they would stay out of the heat. Inside they had it decorated with hand prints from all the children in the tribe. It is pretty amazing because these people were around so long ago. So long ago that I cannot even fathom. I recently read that they found bones to prove that they have been on Australia for about 50,000 years. Holy cow. This is so long ago that there were woolly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, and the people were basically the first humans- ever. (dont think there were woolly mammoths on australia but it gives you an idea of how old some of this stuff is!) Then we went to have some lunch at a picnic ground and go on our last hike of the trip! Up to Mount Zero!
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| Trying to cool off on the shaded rocks! |
The trails were so clearly marked.... geeze... yeah right! Sometimes we would be halfway up and realize we had no idea where we were going because it was just an open rocky area- no paths! Then we would luckily find on of these tiny yellow arrows pointing us in the direction we should be going! Good thing we never got too far off the "trails" because some areas were pretty dangerous!
After the Mt. Zero hike we drove back to Halls Gap and stopped off at a winery right across the street from our cabin! It was a perfect ending to our day! We had wine and cheese and took more pictures of the pretty winery!
We came back later than evening to get a nice picture of the winery at sunset... it turned out really nice although in order to get the pic Brian climbed up a Eucalyptus tree like a bloody koala :)
That night we had dinner, drank some delicious beers, watched the kangaroos and when it got REALLY dark we looked at the stars and OH MY GOSH! I have never ever ever ever seen so many stars in my whole life! You could clearly see the white swoosh across that is the milky way and it was so beautiful! I loved it am still in awe of how many stars you can see when the sky is so dark! You can see more stars in Australia than anywhere else in the world! I cannot wait until we go into the outback where there are literally NO towns for hundreds of miles! Its going to be great :) Its kinda weird that these stars are totally different ones than what we see in america! Ok- so I am now officially a dork. And then i fell asleep watching tennis...
The next morning we got up and at em because it was nearly time to go! We let Brody go out in the morning and hunt rabbits. There are tons of them out in the pasture and they come up near the house. Brody had a hay day chasing them in the morning! That last morning while he was out looking for rabbits a giant kangaroo popped out of the bush and Brody took off after it! Luckily he spotted a rabbit and veered left to get it (I'm not sure what the kangaroo would have done if Brody kept at it!) He also was super interested in the wombat holes.... but unfortunately we never saw any.
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| be veryyyyy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits :) |
And wombats!! I totally wish I caught a picture of Brody chasing the roo but it all happened so fast! Oh well, hopefully that's something that I can store in the memory bank!
We packed up and left then went to lunch in a town up the way called Ararat (can you say that without sounding like you have a speech impediment? because I cant!) The town was really cute and had grape vines along all the shops! We had a nice lunch and even got to stop and see and super special car (according to Brian) at the local car show! A few hours later we were home! It was a really great relaxing trip and we had the best time! Hopefully we can make another trip to the Grampians!
Ok, It's late, I'm tired.... and tennis is still going on! Spoiler alert- Djokovic is in the lead :) Hope you had a great Australia Day!!!!Oh and sorry if you can't handle change but I was getting over my old background so am working on coming up with a new one! So the blog may get a few makeovers until I find something I like :)
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