The Grampians

August 1

11:32am Sydney time 

This morning we got to have a bit of a sleep in as Campbell says. I got up around 8am and we left around 9:15am. Breakfast was provided. Cereal and cold milk, an apple, and a banana! The news was on which was strange because I haven't seen news in so long. It was local and was mostly talking about Lindsey Lohan and Rihanna so I can still safely say I know absolutely nothing about what is happening in the world... Not that I really ever do...

We headed to Logan's beach to see whales. It was actually really cool. We saw 4 or 5 of them and they were pretty close to the shore. Campbell said they were just resting before summer when they move south to Antarctica. These whales and the one we saw yesterday are southern right whales. They were breaching and waving and blowing water out of their blow holes. 

They mate every 3 years and there is a 13 or 14 month pregnancy. Mothers and their calves stay close to shore during the winter and the mothers do not feed them during mating/calving season. A mother can produce a ton of milk and the babies double in size in a week! They suckle for a year and are weaned over 373 days. Campbell said that no one has ever seen whale sex and we don't really know how they mate. They can live to about 60 years old and they are about 18m long. 

After that we headed back into the town of Warrnambool and bought lunch at a super market (Coles). That was another strange experience. So many choices and overwhelming huge. I got a premarital salad, some focaccia bread, some Brie cheese, and a mars bar because I've never had one before. It cost $12 AUD. I don't think that seems like a lot compared to home but I don't really remember. Being here will be good because when I get home I won't be like oh my god everything is so expensive! 

We just saw a bunch of kangaroos climbing a hill.

We are heading to the Grampians in a bit but I think we're doing Tower Hill first. The Grampians means noses in the air because there are a lot of peaks and it looks like people sticking their noses in the air.

12:41pm Sydney time 

We just stopped off for a little view of the Grampians. The surrounding area was beautiful. It's all green grass with little houses. Some trees. It's gorgeous.

We had lunch which obviously we had to buy on our own. I just ate my salad. We had some hot tea as well. Always nice when its chilly. It's Lipton tea and I keep wondering if its maybe made at Cameron Highlands and then shipped out to Lipton. Who knows! 

1:45pm Sydney time

We are driving past Halls Gap which is one of the 2 lakes in the Grampians. The water looks really brown but it is clean. It's from tea plants and clay soil as well as the oil from the eucalyptus leaves.

Kangaroos are the second most energy efficient animal in the world. Emus are the second tallest bird to the ostrich. We've already seen a bunch of kangaroos eating the grass. They are one of the fastest pregnancies on the earth. They can have 3 joeys in 1 wet season. 

Brambuk is the aboriginal word for cockatoo. This is outside the aboriginal center we go to tomorrow morning. 

5:57pm Sydney time 

When we got to the hostel we had about 40 minutes to set up our beds and with the extra time we walked next door to the park and took photos of kangaroos. Kangaroos are strange. They're like a dog, deer, hopping mix thing. It's strange. I can't decide how I feel about them. They're cute I guess. There were some pregnant kangaroos and one with a baby (Joey) in its pouch. That was pretty cool. They have really long tails as well as really long feet. It looks like their tails help them jump and move around as well but I don't know for sure. 

We then got in the bus and drove about 10 minutes. We got out for our hike. It was supposed to be about a 2 or 2 and a half hour hike. We did it as a group there and back in an hour and a half. That included spending time up at the look out point as well. 

Before we started Cam briefed us on the Grampians. There are 2 ridges: the wonderland ridge and the Williams ridge. The highest point is 1100m so it does sometimes get snow. There is a "Grand Canyon" on the trail and it was named after the American Grand Canyon. It was discovered in 1834 which means this was when the Scottish and English laid eyes on it. When they were colonizing Australia they mostly just stayed in Sydney because it was all bush and all they could see for millions of miles was eucalyptus trees but one of the guys and his crew trekked 2000km through the bush and ended up here. It became a national park in 1980. He also said something about how there are a ton of floods in the Grampians and the water just flows over the rocks so they are very smooth. 

Climbing was pretty cool. It wasn't the most difficult trek I've had which was fine with me. It was walking up rocks. But it was clearly cleared and maybe even built as a walking path. There were bridges and railings. They were safe and sturdy unlike in Asia ha. There were even yellow arrows to mark the paths. Pretty impressive trail! 

But for real it was really cool. We did the wonderland trail and went all the way to the pinnacle. Once we got to the pinnacle there was this rock that jutted out and was enclosed with a cage and we got to go up that. The view was amazingly beautiful. It was so green and there were other stone mountains. Cam said we could see the Puranees mountain range, or at least that was the mountain range in Australia. What I have noticed about Australia is that they don't really do their own thing but mostly name things after other areas. Although they have created their own language which sometimes is pretty original and different sounding. We also walked through the Grand Canyon of the Grampians. The rocks were really cool. Browns and blacks and oranges and jagged and bumpy. It was really cold up at the pinnacle though so we didn't stay up there too long. 

After that we stopped in town to grab a few beers for dinner. We had a BBQ which was exciting. Except we all sat inside and made the salad and potatoes while Cam BBQ'd our food for us outside because its freezing. We had a pretty good feast. Kangaroo (which I actually like, and cam made this really tasty sauce which is really BBQ sauce, strawberry jam and garlic although the garlic had gone missing so there wasn't any of that in it), a chicken kabob, a sausage, some lamb, a lot of salad with balsamic vinegar and potato wedges. Very good meal. I was surprised I like kangaroo though. It was way better than the buffalo steak I had in Nepal. For dessert we had Tim Tams. These are a delicious Australian biscuit or cookie. It is 2 biscuits with some flavor in the middle and dunked in chocolate. It's amazing tasting, especially when cold. If I have extra money I will bring these back home for everyone to try.

We spent the evening talking. There was a good debate about why vegetarians won't eat meat as well as a lot of drunk stories, I told my Chicago elevator story. Classy! We don't have to get up too early tomorrow either. Bfast at 8 and leaving at 8:30. 

I did find out that we will split up sometime tomorrow because someone of us go to Adelaide and some of us go back to Melbourne. And, because I go to Adelaide, I miss a wine tour. Lame! 

I haven't had Internet so I haven't been able to check my email to see if Anne, my travel agent, fixed my hostel situation. She booked me at a hostel in Adelaide again after my Adelaide to Alice Springs tour but I will be in Alice Springs and have a flight leaving from Alice Springs the next morning... Hopefully that gets solved. She's made a lot of mistakes with my itinerary...

The hostel we are at isn't too bad. It's more cabin style than house or hostel style. We have bunk beds again but this time we actually have to use the top beds (last night we had a room with 8 bunk beds and only 6 of us so each of us got a bottom bunk). Everything seems clean so whatever.