Out of the city, into the Grampians

“I want to get out of the city.”  Words spoken by my mom, about four hours after my parents arrived in Melbourne.  Maybe she jumped the gun a little bit, but she does have a point.  Melbourne is a great city, but it really could be anywhere.  Much of Australia’s uniqueness comes from the natural landscape (which was reinforced in my Biology of Australian Flora and Fauna exam this morning).

It got a little tight.

So the next day, early in the morning, we got out of the city and headed to Grampians National Park.  Around midday we arrived at Halls Gap, a town near the middle of the park that sounds like it belongs in Middle Earth.  We consulted with the information desk attendant and she pointed us to a number of sights we should see.  First up was a short hike through volcanic-like rocks—unfortunately not as interesting as the ones I visited a couple months ago—to a vista of the surrounding area.

After eating a little lunch we hiked back and drove on to the MacKenzie Falls.  We hiked down a bunch of stairs to get to the waterfall, and it turned out to be a good one.  The day had just started to get nice as well.  I took over 40 pictures of the falls and, even though it was really hard to pick, I’ll include only the best one here.

From there we drove to a nature walk.  Before we even got there my dad spotted an echidna on the side of the road.  By the time we pulled over it had shuffled off the road and stuck its head inside a pile of sticks—a much tamer encounter with wildlife than I had at the beginning of the semester.  The echidna is a monotreme, which means its closest relative is the platypus.  They are the only egg-laying mammals in the world.  To those of you interested, the echidna has a four-headed penis, but only uses two of them during intercourse.  They also form mating trains, with one female in the front followed by several males.  You can pick up some funny facts while studying for exams.

Maybe you can't see me, but I can see you.

But the echidna was just the first course.  Hmm, poor choice of metaphor?  Anyway, at the nature walk we saw many more animals, including but not limited to...

The Crimson Rosella.

The Kookaburra.

This other bird.

and, no, not my parents, Kangaroos!

Satisfied with our sightings, we set back just before sunset.  The only frustrating part was trying to photograph the Crimson Rosella in flight.  They constantly foiled my attempts.  I can't be too disappointed, though, because I did manage to capture some great wildlife with my camera.  Here is a photo I took from the car looking back at the Grampians.  To be honest I messed around with enhancing it, but I didn’t come up with anything better than this, the original.

Goodbye Gramps.

We stopped for dinner in Ballarat, and the guidebook led us to a restaurant that was completely deserted.  Good one, guidebook.  Too late and too tired, we ate there anyway.  My meal wasn’t very good.  Another post coming soon on the next day's travels to Yarra Wine Country.