She'll be coming round the mountain....
Trip Start
Oct 22, 2007
1
60
103
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Halls Gap,
Australia
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
142 38.020e
Maz goes mountaineering today without so much as a cough or splutter!
We leave wimmera lakes near Horsham just after ten for the fairly short journey to lake fyans, near hall's gap, in the midst of the Grampians. There are two routes we can take - directly over the mountains or via stawell - a bit of a longer drive but a flat main road- so we take the easy option!- stawell (pronounced stall). Ma does well and its not long before we reach this next little town. On the way we pass the giant koala- a big bronze statue doorway to a little park. No sign of any real ones unfortunately, despite there being lots of eucalyptus trees on the side of the road
the grampians
.Stawell is another of the quaint little towns we are coming across but we onlystop at the supermarket to stock up on all our favourite goodies and e find a tv ariel so we might be able to see a bit of tele on the laptop - but not in hall's gap apparently - because of the mountains!
We've followed the Grampian range quite a way round by now and so its time to come face to face - we want to see mckenzie falls, a well known waterfall and thre's only one way to get there now...go for it maz!
After countless twists and turns in the road a short breather at reeds lookout ( blimey - that's a view!) we reach the falls. Well hidden (but nevertheless found by lots of other tourists) mckenzie falls are still spectacular despite the water shortage in this area (there has been an eleven year drought and last year major bushfires ravaged the countryside but the landscape is already recovering well) . theres lots more to see around here but we are not going to push our luck with maz so we double back to halls gap, full of hostels and backpacking hikers an extremely noisy cicadas (like grasshoppers) and parrots, and the road back down the mountain is fun! Weeeeeee have been on rollercoaster rides with maz before- this is like going down a helter skelter!A few kms out of town is our campsite for two nights - lake fyans, it's a great place but its deserted
giant koala
! There are some people staying in the little wooden cabins here but we are the campers tonight! Its like a ghost town campsite - lots of static privately owned caravans on site but no- one using them. Maybe there's something strange about this place but it doesn't seem to be the manager- she's very friendly - probably doesn't get many folk to talk to! We were expecting to be able to canoe on the lake (as in the brochure) but with the drought the lake is only at 28 percent capacity and although it used to lap the shore here theres now quite a walk before you reach the waters edge . maybe that's why this place is empty? We make the most of the other facilities and have the lovely swimming pool to ourselves for a while. There is a private function taking place in the café/bar tonight so we spend a quiet night by ourselves after cooking rissoles and new pots for dinner. Its very sultry and looks like rain tonight- could we be in for a scary thunderstorm in ghostcamp?! 
