Back from Hall’s Gap/Gariwerd. I enjoyed it very much. I’m definitely a mountains kind of gal as opposed to a seaside kind of gal. Give me mountains and forests any day, particularly temperate rain forest, which, in my considered opinion and having seen all kinds of forest all over the world, is the most beautiful there is (but I’m biased).

Anyway, we left late morning on Saturday and a trip that would have taken about four hours if we’d gone straight there took about seven. We stopped frequently, and a couple of times actually went shopping (for a few things we needed/forgot to pack), stopped for lunch, took scenic detours, etcetera. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was actually getting a sunburn in the car, all along one shoulder (my shirt habitually slips off that shoulder), one arm, and my face, particularly my nose and upper lip. Ow. Very red, still hurts. Had I thought about it, I would have put on sunscreen in the car!

At a couple of places, there was free WiFi or other internet service (seems all or most of the Information Centres offer it now, even in really small towns!), but I resisted the temptation to get out my phone and tweet something. Part of being on holiday is being away from my computer, as far as I’m concerned. Had we been away longer, I probably would have hired a computer station for a half an hour and caught up my mail and so on, but I figured three days and four nights wasn’t going to be an issue. Other than having 1100+ spam messages, it wasn’t. I didn’t even suffer withdrawl symptoms.

Well, I did from coffee. I didn’t bring our stovetop espresso pot (lesson learned!) and so I went several days without any iced vanilla latté! (Yes, I know how that sounds. I don’t care. I am a suburban yuppie, so it’s okay if I sound like one!) Generally, I do actually make my own iced coffee (I don’t actually make latté because I haven’t got a milk steamer, but I do make iced coffee with vanilla syrup and sometimes cinnamon), but I have coffee most days. I made do with tea, which I also like, but I did feel the lack of coffee rather acutely.

Sunday morning we were woken a little after six (!!!) by a very large, very loud flock of cockatoos. As nobody could sleep with the racket outside, we decided to just get up and get on with our day. We sort of headed out and started looking around in the mountains, and ended up on a rather difficult walking track that included a lot of rocks and other tricky bits. The difficulty level wasn’t noted on any of the signs (we found out later its was rated Medium; I hate to imagine what Difficult is like), and there was a waterfall at the bottom, so off we went. It was supposed to be 100 metres to the waterfall. I got about 20 metres and my intuition told me I wasn’t going to get any further, so I sat down on a big rock to wait for Andrew and the kids to come back (turns out they didn’t get all the way to the waterfall, either).

As I was sitting on the rock, I heard a couple of blokes coming up the track behind me. They were probably in their early to mid-thirties, and they were talking as they walked, some sort of business (maybe accounting or stocks or something; I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I got the gist of it). When they came around the bend and saw me, their conversation STOPPED. I heard a chuckle. Then I heard, quietly, “Ohhh-kaayyyy…”

I guess these two very fit, Gen X guys just weren’t expecting to see a fat, middle-aged, suburban housewife with a walking stick, wearing a skirt, sitting on a rock. Hmm.

Andrew said he was surprised I went as far as I did, given the difficulty of the rocks, etc. I did have my trusty walking stick with me, of course, and I was curious to see how far I could get, and if there were any nice pictures along the way. I did okay. I’m not injured or anything, and my knees aren’t any more sore than they normally are, though my calves are pretty stiff (lots of uphill walking in other areas).

We stopped at a number of lookout points (and took pictures, of course), but the thing I most wanted to see was the Aboriginal art to be seen around the area. Turns out most of the sites are not, in fact, very accessible. One of them, Bunjil’s Cave, isn’t too bad, and it’s considered an extremely important cultural site, so I’m glad I was able to get to that one. We also went to see Gulgurn Manja Shelter, which is a pretty famous one, with lots of red ochre images of hands, many child-sized. It was quite a walk, though, at least in the heat, and there was a bit of a climb at the end. Worth it, definitely, but by that time I was pretty tired and very hot. Turns out that Ngamadjidj Shelter is an easy walk for people with limited mobility, but I only found that out after I got home and started writing this blog. We’ll go see that one next time, for sure.

Speaking of teeming with life, while there we saw huge flocks of cockatoos (including the one that woke us up), kangaroos, wallabies, skinks, all sorts of insects (including a cricket who decided that hopping onto Andrew’s shoulder was the best way to be let out of the car… and it was), various other parrots, crested pigeons (I love those; you only really see them in the country), and emus, and by “we saw emus” I mean, “Emus walked through the caravan park where we were staying, we went outside to see them, and we fed them bits of bread.” There was a parent emu with five chicks. I knew that the park had some emus who came around, having learned that humans are great for a handout, but I didn’t realise there would be so many chicks, or that the parent and one of the chicks would eat out of your hand (Miranda found out the hard way that emus peck very hard!).

Lots of backpackers in Hall’s Gap. While there, I heard at least five different languages, not counting English, and I only really recognised a couple of them. I never hear that many languages in Melbourne, or at least, not all on the same day!

The mountains are incredibly beautiful. Rocky, forested, and absolutely teeming with life of all kinds. I was very moved by the spirit of the place. If I were younger and/or fitter, I would have liked to go on some of the many hiking trails, but, alas, my knees are not good at things like that, even with a walking stick.

EDIT: There are photos in the photo gallery now.

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