One of the first stops of the morning was London Bridge. This was a double arched platform that linked to the mainland. It is a “was” because in 1990 one of the arches collapsed leave two people stranded on the now unattached rock formation. No one was injured and the two marooned sightseers were rescued some hours later by helicopter.
There were some more grotto stops along the way before we came to the Bay Of Islands and neared the end of the Great Ocean Road.
The Bay has some more great rock formations standing alone in the ocean and the bay itself reminds you of something a ships captain may discover and seek refuge in from the wild southern ocean ever to leave because of it’s beauty.
From here we now headed north, away from the ocean and up towards The Grampians. We passed through some flat farmland where the windmill count was high… reference to my partner and co-traveler Sally, and the cow numbers were even higher!!
Our first stop along the way to Halls Gap, the hub of the Grampians, was Mt William.
This was a 10km drive off the main access road and a 2km walk from the car park to the summit.
Once on foot we experienced every known weather condition other than snow. The temperature went from hot to cold… to hot… to cold; the conditions went from raining to windy to foggy to overcast to sunny!! It was a very steep climb that didn’t seem to want to end so due to the inclement weather and knowing we had a morning of walking coming up we decided to head back down. We had great views of the mountain ranges on one side and the farmland areas on the other.
Amazing Sight #3
As we were walking back down the access road, out of the corner of my eye just off the road I saw some movement. After a quick word to Sal and stepping back a little we saw an Echidna in the bush, eating ants!!
It was just going about its thing as if we weren’t there so we happily snapped away. We even got close enough to touch it. At that stage I think it got a bit miffed with us so it just waddled off some rocks and into the bushes having had enough of the prying Homo sapiens.
As we continued to walk down the mountain we also saw some grey cockatoos feeding. The females are all grey and the males have a striking red head and grey body, just before the car park, a fellow traveler was filming another Echidna eating ants. We took a few snaps of this one also but were satisfied in the fact we had seen our own and it was bigger!!! It’s all about the size no matter what people say!
After a long driving day and plenty of wildlife encounters we decided to pull up stumps in Halls Gap for the night before heading on to Ballarat and the Gold Fields tomorrow.
While eating dinner we were invaded by a whole lot of hungry ducks that waddled over.
We threw out some bread and I’d swear I heard a “smile and wave boys, smile and wave…”.
In the park near our campsite some white cockatoos and currawongs were also having territory issues and the scene was like something out of Top Gun, with birds ducking and weaving through the trees trying to establish their homes for the night.
