Sorry we are closed

So let us start with a couple for Dom from when I was waiting for Marjan to make me breakfast. Don't tell her I said that!

Once we were fed we headed north up the Mt Zero road. We decided to give the subie a 4WD try out. All was going well it was handling the sandy track magnificently. However, we decided not to risk this creek crossing. I know it looks tame but up close it did not look as if the only slightly higher clearance would make it. Besides that Marjan was giving me her "we are all going to die!" look and breath intake.

Still, it was a good spot to look around. The fires had ravaged through here recently and as you can see the trees were only beginning their recovery. What that meant was that the understorey was starting some profuse fecundity  (good phrase........for plants, not people) in the ash enriched sandy soil and the grass trees were loving the sun.

Back on the road, the scenery was much the same, very sandy soil an very burnt trees.

Our first planned stop was at the Hollow Mountain car park, where we were going to skip Hollow Mountain, bad previous experience, and instead visit some aboriginal art. Sorry we are closed! said the sign. Bushfire damage and we do not pay enough taxes to fix things quickly.

So off to Mt Zero, where we had no recent traumatic history and hence were able to ascend. Mt Zero is the very last hill in the north of the Grampians and has a magnificent vista over the Wimmera and off to Mt Arapiles. I however, perversely perhaps, have decided to show you the view back to Mt Stapylton and the rest of the Grampians.



and to show you the olive grove we were planning to stop at for some oil and coffee.

We trekked back down and took a slightly different route. Marjan loved it.

We lunched at the Mt Zero picnic ground and after a fine repast of pre-prepared sanggers headed off to the second aboriginal rock art site. You guessed it. Sorry we are closed!

Nothing for it but to soldier on to the olive grove for a coffee. Sorry we are closed!

It just wasn't our day. Still on the drive back to the highway we saw a mob of roos travelling along and across the road, jumping fences and generally making us travel slower. Quite a sight!

I can see why farmers have fences like the one below and gardeners in Hall's Gap have variations on the prison compound. The roos made small work of normal fences.

So off to Stawell (an onomatopoeia or a synonym for stall?) for a bit of a shop. I had forgotten how oddly narrow and closed in the main street shopping area is. Also we spotted perhaps the ugliest building we have seen.....ever...no qualification. The Diamond motel, check it out, I refuse to pollute the blog with its photo.

Marjan decided to have a slow afternoon, so I headed off to take a few more. Nothing special, an emu, Mt Sturgeon, Mt Sturgeon and Mt Abrupt and finally sunset at Lake Bellfield.

Woohlpooer is poncy wanker in aboriginal

Well maybe it isn't (the title) but it could be.

We set off into the lower Grampians, The Victoria Valley, along a corrugated dirt road. Some pretty views of the Victoria Ranges, and some pretty wildflowers along the way.

 It was then on to the Billimina Shelter, a rock overhang with some native art.

It was approaching lunch time so we drove off the dirt road and onto the Henty. Lovely country through the Woohlpooer (I kid you not) forest. Very open forest with lovely gums.

Finally lunch at Dunkeld. We had decided to treat ourselves to the Royal Mail. Apparently it has two hats, one for the rain and one for the sun presumably. Anyway, we were the only suckers in the dining room. It is a bit of a poncy wanker feed, or woohlpooer in the local dialect we decided. You will never guess what they brought us from their world renowned menu. Vegemite on toast ! Well it was Myrtleford butter with vegemite on crusty bread...but still! The food was actually quite yummy with each course, we had four, having something special. The local wine was not bad either.

Well fed and watered, we decided that climbing Mt Sturgeon, let alone Mt Abrupt was probably out of the question, so we headed for the Piccaninny, the little hill in between. It was still 1.2k up hill so we worked off a couple of courses. The hill had been badly burnt recently so lots of grass trees among open land.

And on our way back down we ran into a local.

Marjan decided that was enough for the day, but I wanted a couple of late light shots so headed up the hill and took some.

and when I got back the roos, kookaburras, galahs, currajongs, rosellas, cockies and a new holland honey eater were roaming the grounds.

Yum Yum, another lovely day for the intrepid explorers.

Mt William

We arose at a leisurely time, for us, and had some breakfast.

It was then off for our morning walk. We did the Sundial walk which was as long as yesterday's Pinnacle walk but less rocky. The countryside has had some fires and that meant that the understorey had some light. So we had a profusion of small bushes and ground covers, banksias, grevilleas, correas and other stuff we did not recognise. There was the odd flower among them , but probably Spring is the time for this walk.

The view from Sundial peak was nice and we spotted a wedge tailed eagle briefly. This added to the many other birds we saw along the way.

We decided to visit Silverband falls for our picnic lunch. Not a lot of water but a pleasant place for lunch.


























Marjan decided a slack afternoon of reading and ukuleleing was in order. I on the other hand decided to climb Mt William which is the highest point in the Grampians. Luckily it was a road rather than a track as it went straight up. The top was about 1100 metres, which was about my heart rate. I had a wander about and spotted a couple of wedge tailed eagles soaring by.












The way down was much easier and so I stopped and took some photos......strange as that may seem.

On the way back, I stopped at Lake Bellfield and walked across the weir.

So a swim in the pool and a skype to Laura for her birthday rounded out the day before a dinner of bacon and eggs.

Bye

An Easy Day

We got up late, to the screech of thousands of cockies as previously discussed.

We had decided on a slack day, so we went into Hall's Gap to check out the info centre. Then headed up to Wonderland. The return walk to The Pinnacle was only a little over 4k so we decided it was a goers.

We walked up through The Grand Canyon and Silent Street. Pretty much as I remembered. Quite warm walking up hill. The walking poles, which we tried for the first time were pretty good.

The view from the top was of course as awesome as we recalled. Wandered down getting hotter and yearning for lunch. Of course we had forgotten to buys rolls, so our sandwich stuff was not much use. Back to Hall's Gap where we bought rolls, lunched, and had an ice cream.

 

The afternoon was a knee recovery session. We went to the two easy look-outs, that is no walking, Boroka, looking east, and Reed, looking south. We also did the short walk to The Balconies. I seem to recall them being called the Jaws of Death. At any rate we did not go on them , we left that top the young 'uns. We didn't even build one of those Buddhist stone piles. They were everywhere, particularly on the walk to the balconies.

Came back to digs and had a swim in the pool to try to ease the crick in my neck. Yes it is still there!

See an easy day.

F...ing neck's f...ing f...ed

So we set off on Friday morning with the intention of roaming along the great Ocean Road and pausing where we felt like it. The best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry. Yep the weather was not p[arty to our schemes and would not operate.

Nonetheless we did enjoy a stop for breakfast at Airey's Inlet and enjoyed the views. We managed to get stuck behind a convoy of caravans and tourists around Cape Otway and Marian was breathing the fires of frustration. Still we lost them at a pi (pea sound right but feels wrong) stop and then we managed a little walk around Loch Ard Gorge.

Lunch at Port Campbell among the school kids was nice and off we headed again. We decided we HAD to stop at Cheese World, an Allenford institution. A homey museum of the local German family who started cheese making around here and a coffee shop/store. We wished they had better descriptions of the local cheeses. Having no guide we decided to buy one of each.......hmmmmmm....strategy????????

Drove into Port Fairy and got our weekend bracelet of sound attached. We had time so we stopped off at a local coffee place, we were impressed that Buffy Sainte-Marie was there, so much so that I spilled a whole mug of hot chocolate and Marian broke her glasses. Having impressed Port Fairy we headed to Koroit to check out the accommodation. Clean and spacious with a air hockey table at which we fought a tough draw.

Headed in to the festival and really that was all she wrote for the next 3 days... give or take.

Some highlights...... Steve Poltz, who just makes you cry with his stories, Charlie Musselwaite on the blues harp at about 80, Fiona Boyes a middle aged female blues guitarist who seemed to be having a barrel of fun, the Baker Suite playing Australian songs with a parisienne feel. Michael Fix playing Bach's Toccata on a 12 string guitar was fun, and Marian enjoyed some shows at the Surf Club.

We finished it off with Steve Poltz who had us in tears in his one hour three song set. The title of the blog is inspired by one of his songs. He , apparently as he lies a lot, asked someone off stage what would be a great thing to say to an Australian audience. He was told "f...ing f...ck's f...ing f...ed". so he proceeded to record some loops and bits on stage around that chorus. My title is around the crick in my neck I have been carrying around. Nothing major just needs to be sworn at.

 

 

So we left Port Fairy light hearted and smiling. Dropped by Hamilton for some supplies and caught the lovely southern Grampian view at Dunkeld before checking into our accommodation at Hall's Gap. I particularly like looking up through the door and seeing a kangaroo hop by, or being woken to the chorus of a thousand cokies. OK softies day planned today, some basic walks and an early night.

Capital P

So we decided that after 8 hours of driving yesterday we would walk today. So we headed off from ANU to the lake and across the bridge to the Parliamentary precinct. It was too early to visit the National Library, so we went and checked out the main axis of Burley Griffins dream.

By then it was getting on for nine so we headed up to the Old Parliament House. The attendants werearranging  so floral tributes to Gough as we wandered in. The building is now a museum for democracy and it was fun roving around. It was so small!

Marjan enjoyed being speaker.

We had morning tea inside with a nice view of one of the old courtyards. Time to move on to the new house on the hill.

There was a bit of security about but nothing overbearing and everyone making fun of my Mr Grumpy T-shirt. We got in for a bit of a second reading debate, but not a lot of actual parliamentarians. Still nice to see democracy in action.

Certainly bigger and more spacious than the old. But the highlight was the roof.

Back down the hill we went via one of the old parliamentary gardens. The rose garden outside was a bit of a disappointment, unlike most of the rest which was living up to our hopes.

We decided we needed lunch, so the National Portrait gallery cafeteria was called for, with an outside table and a nice view. Reinforced we wandered the gallery. Some nice stuff. I was taken by the liveliness of Ms Montez, the cheekiness of the Barry Humphrey's self portrait and the lovely photo of Margaret Whitlam at dusk. 

Next stop was the High Court. It is an odd building with each of the three courts apparently suspended in mid air. Nice comfy couches.

Then the National Gallery. It is building quite a collection. We concentrated on the Australian section and quite enjoyed that. Plenty to like...Bracks for me. We did not see everything, just not enough time, but we did enjoy a coffee at tree top level. Canberra has so may nice cofee places in these national monuments.

Back on the road via the sculpture garden and over the bridge to the Carillion.

We dodged around Canberrians as they jogged, cycled and generally enjoyed the lake. We strolled back home and were absolutely spent. We had been out for over 10 hours walked at least 8km between buildings and spent time wandering each. A full day! We decide that dinner was a bit hard so we stayed on campus and had a caf type lunch.

Vale Gough

Ok so this is a travel blog not a political one.....but..........we heard about the death of Gough Whitlam via a phone call from Keyne whilst driving past the dog on his tucker box and I had to say something. This immigrant's son would not have a degree, and possibly not even a sense of justice if it weren't for Gough. The free education is obvious and a whole generation flourished because of it. The other was a timing thing. I suppose i developed a political sensibility at the time of Gough and Malcolm striding the political stage like colossuses. Whilst neither one is as angelic nor the other as demonic as they were idealised at the time, the battle between good and evil was a way for a young man to start seeing the political fight between self interest and the broader good. So bye Gough from a grateful spaniard.

The actual travel? Well it was mostly a drive so nothing particularly exciting. We drove out via Yea and Seymour to avoid Melbourne peak hour traffic. I always like the Goulburn valley around Trawool. They are doing a rail trail that looks like it will be excellent. We stopped at Seymour for second breakfast and then drove on to Holbrook. Holbrook is famous for having a submarine as the centrepiece of its main park. Apparently because Holbrook is the name of a famous submariner and they kind of sponsor submarine folk. I particularly liked the torpedo across from the pub.

I had forgotten, and quite enjoyed, the rolling hills in this part of the world. They were quite green and lovely and went on forever. The sheep in NSW are quite odd. They seem to cluster together in a very friendly clumps, unlike the Victorian sheep who just loll about.

Anyway made Canberra and settled into the digs at ANU. It is right on campus and quite nice with a lovely peaceful cloister. However, less hotelly that normal places, so no Canberra maps available at reception. And no wifi......the horror!!!! We wandered about without a map and managed to find the city centre. Hardly worth it. No tourist office and no people. Just some odd sculptures and the odd wandering goth, single mother or homeless person. When people say Canberra is dead this is where they got the idea.

We drove the 3km out of town to get to a tourist centre to get a good map. Google maps wanted Marjan to drive on the wrong side of the road. She resisted! We got our maps and decided to risk some roundabouts without one.....yep ended up going the wrong way. Still; the traffic hardly makes any difficulties when getting back on track. 

Made it back to the digs and ate at the University House restaurant called....Boffins.....what wags. Not bad. By then we were buggered so spent the evening watching TV....well episodes of The Newsroom via our ipad. 

Bye for now.