Grampians (Australia Part 12)

Before heading towards Melbourne on the coast, we first went inland to 'The Grampians' national park.

On the way to our hotel, we made a stop at the 'Reed Lookout' viewpoint.

As we drove through the town of Halls Gap, we saw many kangaroos and some emus lying or feeding on a meadow in the sun.

Our hotel was located a bit outside, where foxes and rabbits bid good night. Or rather, kangaroos and emus. We saw both of them passing by our window during breakfast the next morning.

A small bird, which had chosen the poles for the sunshade above our terrace as its favorite place to sit, was much more photogenic than these two rather shy creatures. It probably hoped that a crumb or two would fall for it...

Unfortunately, it couldn't find anything because it was still quite cold outside and we were eating inside.

The next morning, we set off on a 9.4 km hike.

Right in the parking lot, we saw several kangaroos, including a mother with a playful joey hopping around her incessantly.

The path led to various points of interest in the national park:

the Venus Baths

the Grand Canyon

the Pinnacle viewpoint

After the hike up the mountain, we took a short walk to the 'Balconies' viewpoint, which was named after a rock formation resembling a balcony.

From Boroka Lookout, which we could actually drive to for a change, we also had a nice view of the landscape below.

After a final detour to a short path to the Silverband Falls, we drove back to the hotel feeling a bit exhausted.

For the next morning, we had actually planned on climbing Mount Williams, the highest mountain in the park (of course, only the last 2 km of the trail starting from the parking lot). However, we then decided to continue our journey to Budj Bim National Park, which is located in the area of Australia's most recently extinct volcano.

Various hiking trails surround the crater lake. We chose the 'Lava Canal', which follows the former lava flow. So we hiked along cooled lava and explored the interior of a lava tunnel that had formed after the hot lava flowed back.

Unfortunately, the path turned into an overgrown trail covered in grass and thistles. The difficult path seemed to never end, even though we spotted two koalas along the way: one was sitting in a tree (we discovered it all by ourselves in the wilderness!), while the other was on the ground and ran away from us on foot.

After struggling through several kilometers of weeds and climbing over the lava flow, we finally climbed up to the rim of the crater, from where we could overlook the crater lake.