I first heard about The Grampians from Patrick and Claudine on the dive boat, a national park which was supposed to be beautiful. Well, I didn't expect it to be within reach of the Great Ocean Road trip, so when I found out, from the two new room mates, I wanted to combine both. It was only around 2 hours North of the end of The Great Ocean road and the driving was nice because it was almost full-moon and nobody else on the roads, I maybe met 4 cars and a extra long truck.
When entering the national park, there was a sign with Kangaroos the next 64km, yeah, those signs were everywhere. 10 seconds later I nearly drove off the road, they were everywhere, and so many of them. Jumping next to the car while I was driving 20kmh trying to film or video record, but it was too dark. The 64km I had to drive 20-30kmh because I did not want to hit a kangaroo or any of the other wildlife they had there. I saw foxes, deer, some big rodent kind of thing, and I am about to say 100s of kangaroos, because there were everywhere. It was driving in the children section in the zoo where tame kangaroos are jumping around. Most of them were afraid, but not all in the beginning. These kangaroos are really funny to look at, and some of them were actually quite big. They are just as curious as I am, but when I took the camera up, they ran away. They are not very photogenic or maybe they are afraid of picturetaking if they had some grass in their teeth?I came to the village around half an hour past midnight, and had intentions of getting up before sunrise, because I kind of messed up a little bit. I thought I had an extra day and could rent the car for 2 days, but after checking my itinerary, I saw my plane was leaving at 10 in the morning I thought I should just rent for 1 day and be back in the hostel to back and ready to leave next morning.
I didn't figure it would be necessary with a hostel because it was only going to be for 3 hours. I found a nice spot in the forest where I parked, reclined the seat and tried to sleep. Damn this car was uncomfortable, this is not something the cars are built for, I can see that now. Lesson learned for my trip to NZ later, car sleeping not on top of the list. I think I may have slept 2 hours or something, waking up 5 times. It was raining and windy like crazy, the little car was being shaken a lot, with the content inside also being thrown around.
I woke up the last time around 4.30 and went out to stretch my legs and brush the teeth. The rain had stopped and no wind anymore, but now I can suddenly hear noises from the forest, everywhere. It was still dark, so not really possible to see what is out there. I took my little head lamp and put light out into the forest and saw multiple pairs of eyes looking at me, kangaroos I thought. But I couldn't see what they really were and suddenly I realized I did not know what kind of animals they had in Australia in the forests, so I quickly jumped in the car, haha. Had to log onto the Internet to check if there were any bears or wolves, I didn't think so, but you never know. Only to figure out they have the worlds most dangerous bird hoping around there, haha. Not what I had expected. Found a lot of info about snakes and spiders too, actually I shouldn't have done that, now I was sitting in the car thinking twice about the morning hike...
The park had some excellent hiking trails, not all too long and I could have done a couple of them in a few hours, but now I had to chose just one and start before sunrise. I picked the one with the best view and set off, it was only an hours walk, really refreshing I have to admit, haha. It was still almost dark, but just on the break of dawn I started to see all the animals around. Kangaroos everywhere again, also looking at me, who is that guy walking around in our forest in the middle of the night? No killerbirds, no crocodiles chasing me, just another calm morning in the park. Good
Half way up the hike I started to be able to see out and around, wow what a view. When I can up to the top, the sun was already up, but it was kind of disappointing to see that it was all foggy and cloudy, a mist hanging in the air, so very difficult to see very far clearly. I took a few pictures, chased a few kangaroos down the trail again and got back to the car.
I should have rented the car for 2 days, and just return it early in the evening. Now I had to leave the place at 7.30 to make it back to the rental office in Melbourne at 10.30. Only got to see a fraction of what makes The Grampians so great, that was too bad. I will not make that mistake again, another lesson learned. Stopped on the way out of Halls Gap, the little town, to take a few pictures of the animals. Two male kangaroos were showing off a little, beating each other a little with their back legs. Jumping up, supporting themselves on their tail, then using their back-legs to kick the other kangaroo.
I am a little disappointed that I didn't get to see the big red kangaroos that live in the outback. They get up to 3 meters tall and can jump up to 9 meters. Imagine that, I probably wouldn't have made it back to the car with one of those mutant kangaroos chasing me.
People are very law abiding people here in Australia. A sign of 80km/h and they immediately slow down, nobody was speeding on the motorway as they call it here, except the red little Hyundai with a Danish driver easily swooping by everyone.
I made it back with half an hour to spare, got the car returned and everything was good. I went back to the hostel, copied the pictures to my computer, laughed a little at the kangaroos before I fell asleep over the computer. When I woke up, the kangaroo that had been chasing me was staring at me, he was keeping an eye on me, haha
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