The Ella Rock Hike

 The destination, Ella Rock summit.

 Part of the route.

 Terraced farms.

The tall grass.

 The first viewpoint.

 Standing in a forest of eucalyptus trees.

At the summit.

 The town of Ella way below.

 Left to right, Gordon, me, Michael, Adrian and John in front.

 The snack bar on the way down with our local guide.

The hotel pool.

Sunday, February 11^th.

Today was had a little later start. We had time to have a good breakfast at the hotel before our local guide turned up. Eight of us were off on a hike to Ella Rock. We walked from the hotel, through town and onto the local train tracks for about two kilometres before heading off into the countryside. We walked through some really tall grass, then a tea plantation and finally up a very steep hill, which I found quite difficult, probably because of altitude. I think we climbed about a kilometre and wound up on a very picturesque hill overlooking the town of Ella and the surrounding valley. We stayed up there for about a half hour before hiking back down and along the train tracks back to the hotel.

We took advantage of the nice weather and had a refreshing dip in the hotel pool and a short nap on the loungers. After that we went for walk around this incredibly touristy town. We stopped at a café and had a coffee while watching people walking about. Then we walked past the train station when the train arrived and about a hundred tourists of various ages got off. Really amazing. I can’t figure out why they are all coming here, it’s a nice place and there are a few things to see, but really nothing too special. Then we went to the room for computer time. I spent the afternoon wrestling with the computer and trying to get my Skype working, without success. I became extremely frustrated and fed up. Later we met our group for a briefing about tomorrow.

The restaurants here are small and it is difficult to fit sixteen people in so we all headed out separately, so John and I headed out for dinner at the Chill Restaurant again. We had a couple of beers and a great veggie stirfry. Then back to the hotel for the night.