Grampians: The Pinnacle

The Grampians are a series of low mountain ranges that rise out of the flat Victorian landscape about 4 hours west of Melbourne if travelling by public transport. Halls Gap is the main centre of tourist activity in the area. It has nearby bushwalks, plenty of accomodation, exorbitantly high grocery prices, and an information centre abundant in brochures. For those of you with cars, Halls Gap serves as a good starting point for driving to other walks and lookouts in the area.

We arrived around 2pm and promptly chose the longest bushwalk available considering the timeframe we had to work with (sunset wasn't til around 8.30pm). This was the walk to the Pinnacle, described by the sign as suitable for fit and energetic walkers, involving slippery rock surfaces and some rock hopping. Bring two litres of water per person. We worriedly added a bottle of grape Gatorade to our meagre 750ml each and decided that was enough. A new paragraph and a bit of caps lock is required to emphasise my next point:

2.2 litres of water between two people is NOT enough.
BRING WHAT THE SIGN TELLS YOU TO BRING.

We rationed our water and survived without any horribly worrying signs of dehydration, but I definitely won't be risking that again.

The walk begins along a pleasant shady path which climbs in a misleadingly relaxed manner. A few wandering stairs here and there, and you reach the Venus Baths. This consists of some smooth rock from which you may slide down novel distances of around 1m, propelled by whatever water there is at the time. It was a bit dry when we visited, but I imagine it would be lush after rain. The attraction of the baths is heightened by the fact that is is bordered on one side by an imposing rock slope which looks like a normal rock slope that accidentally got skewed in photoshop. You may feel tilty.


The Venus Baths

A few unremarkable kms later you reach the Wonderland Carpark, mentioned here because there is a dunny on the other side of it, with some rainwater to wash your hands (not for drinking).

After the carpark, the track gets serious about being uphill. There are steps upon steps, rock steps and metal steps and narrow steps where only one foot fits at a time. The track then split and we took the way to the Grand Canyon. The landscape changes drastically upon entering it, and we got to walk on relatively level ground for a few hundred metres surounded by great big rocks that look like compressed cake topped by crazy abseilers.


The Grand Canyon

There really were a lot of rocks. The bush and trees would frequently be interrupted by large sandstone flats, making the landscape continuously interesting. Chris said they reminded him of a mountain walk he did in Queensland, but I hadn't been in anything similar before. We agreed that the awesomeness of the area would have been breathtaking if it weren't for the fact that we could hardly breathe as it was from the aerobic activity required to walk through it. We also found as we went along that many of the signs indicating a destination and approximate distance (eg. Pinnacle .7km) appeared to be underestimating the distances written on them. This was rather discouraging but by that time there wasn't much alternative to going forward.

Much struggle and a bit of crawling later, we reached the Pinnacle! The views over the many unfenced cliffs were duly satisfying. Halls Gap, Lake Bellfield, some pinkish mountains surrounding the valley and lots of trees. We sat around admiring the view and forgetting to take photos. It was good.


This photo is only a part of it and does not depict the view at all, and has been posted because the people in it give a good idea of the scale.

We got lost on the way down and deviated a bit from the track because of insufficient yellow arrowing. Luckily we hit an alternative route down and we continued on our way. The walk down was a breeze by comparison, though perhaps a bit long. We arrived back at Halls Gap by 8.

Quick notes about the Pinnacle track:
• The walk (to both the Pinnacle and Chatauqua Peak) begins at Halls Gap carpark near the swimming pool. Walk past that, then across the little bridge to your right, turn left into the tennis courts, and walk through the botanic gardens. You'll find signs from there, and yellow arrows will be painted on the rocks later on to direct you.
• If you have a car, you can start the Pinnacle walk at the Wonderland carpark, which will cut about 5km from your travels.
• Grippy shoes and sunscreen are a MUST.
• Bring 2L of water per person!

More Grampians photos on flickr

Ballaarat: additional notes

The landscape visible from the train to Ballarat from Melbourne is dry, flat, and featureless but for the occasional cow. Do not fret about sleeping during the journey, as you will not be missing much. (nb. I slept through it, so don't take my word for it being all dry, flat, and featureless.)

Leave a lot of time for your exploration of Sovereign Hill. Aside from what was already mentioned by Chris, the streets are lined with various 1800s businesses and buildings, including shoe makers, blacksmiths, phrenologists, dodgy magic shows, candle makers, saddleries, a masonic lodge, apothecaries, and pubs. All of them have been recreated with meticulous attention to detail, and many come with live demonstrations. The walls are plastered with letterpressed posters.



Sure it's not packed with high density excitement, but the experience is believeable and refreshingly devoid of glamourising 21st century bells and whistles.

Things you can buy for yourself at Sovereign Hill are:
• a parasol
• cold ginger beer
• a miniature bugel
• gold jewellery
• a portrait of yourself in period clothing
• a cast iron shovel

For $9, I bought myself pen and ink, as well as a book entitled A Catechism of the Rudiments of Knowledge, Specially Adapted for Australian Beginners. It's kind of funny in what I hope is a satirical way. Here's a page of it:



Ballarat the town has some cool things in it too. I particularly liked the antique store on the way to Bakery Hill which stocked some extremely valuable Beatles memorabilia and first edition Spiderman comics, as well as boxes of aged Australian postcards and photographs which you could purchase for a dollar each. The town is worth at least a morning's stroll, so don't leave that out of your planning!

Our Ballarat photos on flickr.

Ballaarat

Ballarat (previously spelt Ballaarat, as it was named from an Aboriginal phrase: ‘Balla arat’ ) is a large-ish city north west of Melbourne that totally fails to live up to its reputation of being brown, devoid of cars and in the mid nineteenth century. The town of Ararat is nearby and was named by someone with a mouth full of bread. The city proper of Ballarat is actually really nice. I might describe it a little.

The streets are wide and lined with grand old nineteenth century buildings and fountains. It's a pretty even mix of new buildings and old ones and you get the impression that they are all still used for normal, everyday things, and the tourists are shipped off to the outskirts. We arrived there by train in the morning and barely had time to appreciate the culturally significant buildings before we hit the first coffee shop on the road. We’d only slept for a few hours before leaving for our flight from Sydney earlier that morning, and while the high of being in fucking historic Ballarat was pretty sustaining (and flavoursome), we knew at some point this high would not be able to overpower the need for both the taste and energy that a latte with one sugar provides.



The coffee came with a chocolate lolly. This was one of the many positive experiences we had of the place. After our coffee, we walked further down the street, generally admiring the numerous grand structures built from the riches of a bygone goldrush era, and it struck me that in places like Ballarat (and Bendigo, etc.), a short period in their history brought in so much wealth that it’s still reverberating today. Like a loud gunshot in the Grand Canyon, where the bullet hits a lake and endless ripples form. We actually went to a place called the Grand Canyon, but that’s later on.

We got to our okay hotel with a tiny, cold-looking pool and put our stuff down. We then caught the free (for us) bus to Sovereign Hill, an open air museum that I was immensely interested in from a historical perspective. Sovereign Hill was worth a good day’s exploring, mainly because of the quantity of activities with which you can engage. It works like a mix between a gold rush town, a gold rush theme park, and a high school history lesson. There are horses that carry carriages around the town in circles. There is a gold panning area where you could find gold pieces so small that only the Sovereign Hill employees could even see them. And there are numerous shops and craftspeople (blacksmith, grocer, lollymaker, etc). Niki was positively enthralled with lollymaking. And exorbitantly happy with the printing place.

After generally walking around, looking at horses and whims, and failing to find any gold in a small river, we walked through the air-conditioned history lesson section. There were interesting little nuggets of information, like how much gold each state ended up bringing in, and how it affected their populations. Victoria won out in those stakes, with NSW significantly behind. South Australia almost lost out completely (apart from population rise from more indirect means). We then regrettably decided not to do any gold mine tours, which I think would have been a lot of fun. Apparently we didn't think so at the time.

Finally, after watching various demonstrations of gold sieving, sorting and smelting (with a bar worth about AU$100 000!), we headed back to the real town, ate some saucy noodles and slept. When we awoke, we had a coach to catch to the Grampians mountains, so we bought some food from the 24hr(!) Coles, and went on our way to Stawell (pronounced Stall).