The Grampians was the last item on our “hit list” for this trip, as we have to be back home early next week for various reasons. On the way home we will be driving through the middle of Victoria via Great Western (great Sparkling whites), Pyrenees (great reds), and Rutherglen (great desert wines). Hey! That’s a three course meal. Might be an extra day or two.

For all you dedicated blog followers. Yes all six or so of you. You know who you are. Especially that guy in Hungary, and no I don’t have a younger sister. I do have a older one though, what was the deal again, six goats, a cow and……?

So for all of you…here’s a bunch of flowers, hand picked by Jen, especially for you in the Grampians. The view was lousy but the flowers were, well, you judge….

We are the Grampians, We are The Grampians,…………

“Its we are the Champions”

Who sings we are the champions?

“No it was Queen not the Who”

So the queen sang we are the champions.

“Not The Queen, just Queen”.

Who said anything about The Queen?

“No they didn’t, they sang about Tommy though”

Tommy who?

“That’s right Tommy by The Who, We are The Champions by Queen”

Apologies to Freddy Mercury and Queen, but I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded being associated with the following rock.

So “The Grampians” were named by some pioneering type ( a certain Major Mitchell in fact) who thought that the mountains looked just like Scotland. Never having seen Scotland we decided it would be worth the walk (seven point four kilometres with a vertical component of five hundred metres, according to our three dollar map) to see what Scotland looks like.

The Pinnacle.

My first clue should have been the quizzical look we got from the mob of kangaroos at the start of the track (there’s that word “track” again) they were in hindsight unused to the presence of human kind on days like today. My second clue should have been that we had the car park to ourselves, not only the car park but the track as well.

All good hikers check the weather forecast before they leave on a four-hour hike, and yes we did. “Rain developing in the afternoon”. Noon is early in these parts apparently. If Scotland is overcast, wet, dreary and cold, which I suspect it is, having watched several episodes of Hamish Mac Beth, then the Grampians have been well named.

The Art Sites

Our rather chilly and wet sojourn in the AM did not dampen (Ha! Dampen) our enthusiasm for Victoria’s largest collection of indigenous art.

My fist clue should have been the mornings effort, and the still numerous cloud formations. My second clue should have been the overgrown nature of the track.

Being dedicated tourists however we toughed it out and before long we were rewarded with more “rain developing in the afternoon”. The track got steeper and the track got narrower until we had to push our way through the undergrowth, collecting the accumulated wetness from the undergrowth on the way. Jeans are well known for their uselessness as hiking clothing and yes we were wearing jeans, so it didn’t take long for them to become saturated.

We made the art site a little wet but not discouraged, this was after all Victoria’s best art site according to the publicity. The art here is referred to as tally marks, a collection of vertical marks made with ochre. There are also a couple of stick figures painted on top. One of my two favorite sisters in law (I only have two by the way) once went to great pains to tell me that just about anything can be described as art. These tally marks may well be art however I suggest the marks are a tally of the number of days it has rained without stopping. Further, the stick people clearly list who’s turn it is to go out in the rain and club some hapless wallaby to death and drag it back to the shelter for tea.

All this aside, we now had to walk back to the car. The rain had stopped, there was a strange light overhead, which may have been the sun, it wasn’t there long enough to really say. Things were definitely looking up. Wrong. The undergrowth that we had cleared the excess water of on the way up the track now presented a fresh supply from the other side on the way down. This ultimately led to an upwardly mobile soakage problem that could, and in fact did, lead to a degree of dampness in that region way north of the knees. We repaired to camp and the medicinal alcohol.

Going to walk where????

A long way up.

and a long way down.

You have to suffer for you art.

What a view!

Clearing….clearing….. no, more cloud.

Bob’s turn to get the take out.

forty days and forty nights….

Roads can be described on a sliding scale, starting from the very popular and generally smooth “freeway” and ending up at the less popular, less traveled, and nearly always rough, “track”. In between there are various degrees of road including streets, toll ways, secondary roads, development roads, tourist trails and so forth. The track however is unique, its description simple and concise, it’s a “track” and as such is ideally suited animals like emus and kangaroos, and wayward Boy Scouts in search of wayward Girl Guides.

It’s a sad fact yet true that to arrive anywhere in the outback of Australia worth seeing you need to put up with the “track” and we should know we’ve put up with a few.

Now that’s cleared up let’s look at the pictures of the Painted Desert on the Oodnadatta Road, sorry, “track”. Oodnadatta? Who comes up with these names? I’m sure half the time the local indigenous persons make this stuff up so they can have a laugh when we try and pronounce names like “Jaminjung”, “Ngaliwurru”, “Ngarinyman” and “Wurlayi” and these are just peoples names. It’s all sounding a bit Welsh to me except the letter “L” has been replaced with a “G” or an “N”. So the good old Welsh name, “Llewellyn”, would become “Nnewggyn“. See now it starts to make sense. The Welsh now have even more explaining to do (apart from Tom Jones that is).

It takes a while to get used to this camping business. Down sizing to a queen size bed, no oven, worse still no cellar. It’s tough I tell you! The worst thing is the strange liquor licensing rules where shops don’t open until mid afternoon, ask for identification, and limit the quantities of alcohol you can buy. We’re learning though, the trick is to never let a chance go by. If you see a liquor shop open, just buy, buy, buy, it’s an investment against future disappointment.

Trying to cobble together a simple meal from ingredients lying around or picked up along the way is also another inconvenient exertion. We have managed a couple of half decent meals. Examples follow.

Kununurra fruit pancakes with butter and Canadian maple syrup, topped with Greek yogurt. Ethiopian coffee (pressed).

Gregory Tree Ancient Grains Fried Rice.

Grampian Salmon with steamed vegetables on a bed of mash, served with Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz. Don’t stress, the balsamic glaze had sufficient weight to carry the Bin 61.

Tennessee Fettuccine with bacon and mushrooms in a Jack Daniels cream sauce.

Bungle Bungle tri colour pasta with mushrooms and black olives in a tomato sauce and toasted parmesan and herb bread.

Lambert Central goats cheese pizza. Half vegetarian half with Hungarian salami.

Vegetables, no doubt in season somewhere, with toasted sourdough.

The universal repair kit.

Why do people dress up termite mounds, hang underwear from trees in the middle of nowhere, nail thongs to a tree, or arrange a group of strollers with stuffed animals in them on the side of the road. We certainly are a weird bunch of people us Aussies. Do we do this as artistic expression or are we all just a bit warped. Warped works for me, I like warped, nice warped that is, not twisted warped… hey look the rum is starting to work.

Thank heaven for gun control.

The beer might be hot, but at least the phone is cool. These people are just wrong, wrong I tell you!

Good old Fran’s homemade everything. She was closed fortunately.

Emu Vs. Alien.

By all that is green. That’s the biggest chicken I’ve ever seen.

Bargain?

Rock Art.

Bubbles in the pond at Cathedral Gorge

Who is this Muppet?

Seriously. Who is he?

Jen who is deathly scared of cows, let alone bulls took this photo. You cant tell me the camera doesn’t sense fear. Click to enlarge.

This is my image of the same bull. It was kind of a Crocodile Dundee moment! We took the long way aback to the camp ground.

Ant Hill

It was the Heartbreak Hotel. Elvis would be.. well I don’t really know what Elvis would be.

???

The invisible man waiting for the invisible bus

Early Commonwealth Bank

Just one more week and I can ……….

The picture is a little unclear, but I am sure its the Loch Ness Monster, or maybe the Loch eel. We were at Lochiel after all.

Mail Box. It has to be a bull because its male.

The Landrover Lollipop as promised.