This park was so amazing I have to give it its own blog post. It’s west of Melbourne and we liked it so much we stayed for a couple of days to explore more of it. When we arrived it was cool and misty. Dave found some great hikes online before we got there and we decided to tackle one of the longer ones first.
It was about 4k each way. We weaved through an area called the Grand Canyon. It was definitely grand and beautiful, but not anything like the Grand Canyon of the States. We eventually weaved through a very narrow area between the rock walls before continuing upward.
The off and on rain made the hike that much more interesting, beautiful and tricky to navigate as most of it was walking up rocks.
The rocks and boulders were incredible artwork themselves. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of them. The mist and overcast skies made them that much more dramatic. They had the most interesting shapes and kind of looked like they melted into each other. They also looked like striated cells if you know about microbiology.
We stopped a couple of times and sat under an overhanging rock to wait for harder rain to pass. There were only a handful of other people on the hike that day too.
We went through another narrow area called Silent Way and you could hear water rushing beneath the rocks. Kind of unnerving thinking if the rocks gave way you might get swept away.
We eventually made it to the top for an amazing 360 degree view.
Towards the end we walked through another gorgeous eucalyptus forest. Great hike and I’d definitely do it again. We rewarded ourselves with some delicious ice cream in the super cute town of Halls Gap at the base of the mountains.
We were going to do another hike closer to sunset because that was supposed to be one of the best times to go, but when we started a very thick fog rolled in and we couldn’t see anything so we saved it for the morning.
We found a pretty awesome and quiet campsite and the next morning after our usual breakfast we headed back out. We did two shorter hikes the second day.
The first was good, but nothing exceptional.
The second was Makenzie Falls and it was amazing. Very steep, lots of steps. Straight down to the bottom of the falls.
We got some hilarious photos. Dave had the idea that we should climb up on a rock and get some self timer pictures of us standing on this huge boulder. I set the camera up and climbed on up the rock. Dave then pressed the shutter and tried to race up it. It took three attempts for us to almost get the shot. Each attempt the camera fired 10 photos off! So we have 30 photos of the attempt. It was totally worth the laugh and the hike. And the falls were gorgeous! Some of the best we’ve seen in Australia!
So if you’re in Melbourne, head a few hours west to check out Grampians. You won’t be disappointed.
