Valleys and Vistas

 Look before you cross!

 Victoria Valley

 The narrow one lane road.

 The view from the Baroka Lookout: Lake Bellfield and the town of Halls Gap.

 The Balconies and people risking their lives.

 MacKenzie Falls.

Lake Wartook

Sunday, April 24^th.

Woke up about seven to the cacophony of cockatoos! Had breakfast at the motel and discovered that there was a motorcycle tour group staying here and heading out this morning. Can you imagine how green I was? I talked to the organizer and told me that they rent bikes too. So I got his card for a possible future trip and a map of a more scenic route home.

After checking out I drove through town looking for a place to stay tonight. Everything was still booked up but I check a hostel on the edge of town and secured a private room for $80.

With that sorted, I decided to drive the Grampian Road from Halls Gap to the southern end of the park, a town called Dunkeld. It was about a 60 kilometre drive through some lovely forests and past mountain vistas. I saw a red deer and her doe by the side of the road and a wallaby as well. On the way back I took another loop through the Victoria Valley. It was even more beautiful as I drove through the flat valley, past farms of sheep and cows and beautiful iconic Australian trees. It was about 30 kms from Dunkeld through the valley back to the main park road. All of it is paved and most of it is one lane only and if anyone comes the other way someone has to give way. I decided that I am going to return to the Grampians in the future and stay in Dunkeld and cycle this section of road. It would be a lovely road to ride and very quiet. On the way back I stopped at the reservoir that they call Lake Bellfield.

When I got back to Halls Gap I decided to drive to a number of scenic lookouts along Mount Difficult Road and Mount Victory Road. First I went to the Boroka Lookout which gave a spectacular view of the valley, Halls Gap and the Lake Bellfield from two viewing platforms. From there I drove to the Reed Lookout, which is a forest fire lookout tower that commands views of the entire area. I took a three kilometre walk from there to the Balconies which provide another amazing view of the valley on the other side from Halls Gap. After that I drove to MacKenzie Falls where I met up with all of the tourists in the park! The parking lot was jammed. I took the trail two kilometres to an overlook of the falls before returning and descending about three hundreds steps to the base of the falls. They are very pretty even though it hasn't rained here in a long time. Then I took a road that descended to Lake Wartook which is another reservoir built in 1899. It was very scenic and I watched a family fly fishing. From there I drove along a very narrow mountain road with no shoulders or guardrails to something called the Zumsteins. I had to find out what that was. It turned out to be the ruins of one of the very first bush camp holiday retreat built by Walter Zumstein and his wife in the 1930's. They built three 'rammed earth' cottages, a swimming pool and a tennis court by the river. They lived there until the last 1950's before they retired. When the National Park was opened the retreat was closed and is now in ruin. Then I had to retrace my steps back past all of those locations to Silverband Road which took me down from the mountain back to Lake Bellfield and the Grampian Road to return to Halls Gap.

I drove to the hostel to check in and pick up my key. I saw two emus feeding in the bush by the hostel. I was hungry and it was getting dark and cool by this time, so I decided to treat myself again and to eat at a local Punjabi Restaurant. I had a delicious meal of chicken tikka, and prawns in coconut and onion sauce with a Carleton Draft. Then I drove back to the hostel for the night. This is a nice hostel, and they have a common room complete with fireplace, TV and DVD machine, a pool table and about eight terrariums full of Australian lizards and snakes! The young husband and wife who run it collect them. I had a nice private room where I went to type and then read. I am reading a book about an Australian pioneer.

I drove a total of 226 kms today.