Lake Bellfield - the final day

What a wonderful lazy day. Sat around and did very little today. The troop took off and went to the local market this morning. I sat and read......what luxury.

Lunch saw the arrival of the famous vanilla slice from the Halls Gap bakery. Yum!

We went for a short walk up to Lake Bellfield which is just next to the caravan park. We can see the dam wall from the caravan park. The dam was approximately 1.2km long, so that was nearly 5km we did!










































We stopped at the local art gallery and mini golf centre. Coffees all around, except for me and a diet coke.












As we were cooking dinner, the man from the local zoo arrived with a dingo, a couple of snakes and a blue tongue lizard.
























Pete's famous stew for dinner tonight.






Tomorrow morning we pack up and head home :-(

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Location:Tandara Rd,Halls Gap,Australia

Boronia Peak

Well today was a big one. The hike up to Boronia Peak. This was a 6.2 km hike return, plus 800m each way to where we parked the car.






As we started our journey, we spotted a mob of kangaroos sitting around looking for some sunshine.






We started the steady climb through the messmate forest and native pines. I must admit it was a steady climb.






This one was classed as a steep track with a medium grade. Hard work. Halfway there, we were ready to finish, but we persisted.


























Just as well we kept going. Spectacular views from all around.























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Location:Tandara Rd,Halls Gap,Australia

The Picaninny

We took off this morning and headed to Dunkeld for some lunch at the The Gourmet Pantry. Great food in a nice location. Afterwards, we climbed The Picaninny. This was a gradual climb through open forest. The summit provided excellent views of Mount Abrupt, Mount Sturgen and Dunkeld.

A lot of the roads have been closed due to the floods earlier in the year. So we had to drive around the mountains to Dunkeld. This was the result....




Mount Abrupt








Mount Sturgen







Back to Halls Gap with a short stop for coffee and cake at the Black Panther Cafe. It seems to me that a lot of our journey revolves around food (as it should).



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Location:Tandara Rd,Halls Gap,Australia

The calm before the storm

Well, here we are on the eve of the Easter break. There will be a mad influx of campers throughout the day and into the evening.

As the sun was shining this morning, we thought it would be a good idea for another hike. So off we went to Hollow Mountain. It was a steep and strenuous climb from the base of the iron stained cliff. We had to climb through fallen boulders and along exposed ledges. Very scary. Well done Belinda, especially with your fear of heights. The views at the top were spectacular even though it was extremely windy and well worth the hike.





















The journey back down was much easier and didn't take as long.

We headed back into Halls Gap to meet Jen and Pete for coffee as they were set up after arriving late morning. Upon our return to the caravan park, there were more campers all over the place. They continued to arrive until after 9pm setting up and settling in for the Easter break. The park was very quiet after 11pm, with just the growl of local stag off in the distance. I must say, if I didn't know better I would have said it was a T-Rex from Jurassic Park. A very loud and unusual sound!


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Location:Tandara Rd,Halls Gap,Australia

Rain, rain, rain

It has rained on and off all night. It is still raining this morning. It's just a drizzle, nothing serious, but enough to make everything wet, wet, wet. The mountain behind the caravan park has been hidden by the low clouds this morning. As 10.30am approaches, the sun is trying to break through.

We took off around 11am for some wine tasting at Seppelts Winery. We just missed the tour of the winery, so we left and went to Bests Winery. Here we were able to undertake a self guided tour of the winery. Very good indeed.












Some wine tasting and then we left for Salingers for lunch upon recommendation from the lady at the winery.






We went back to Seppelts and did the tour of the winery which took nearly an hour. The tanks can hold up to 16 million liters of wine, which could be one massive headache! I was amazed at the number of bottles stored underground. The mould growing everywhere was also amazing. It was like a black fairy floss growing on the wall.





















On the way home we had a quick stop at the Stawell Athletics track to see where the Stawell Gift is held on Easter Monday.



Back to the caravan park for nibbles and drinks! The fire is going and the cloud is starting to clear. The birds are hovering looking for food.


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Location:Grampians Rd,Halls Gap,Australia