24 February 2010

Day 168 – Grampians National Park (24 February)

Spent the day in the Grampians National Park.  What a spectacular park.  Majestic mountains the highest being Mt William which is 1111m high.  We picked a perfect day to go not too hot and it was clear and sunny when fog had been forecast.  Its quite a big park with lots of great walking trails and lookouts.  There was no charge to enter the park which is a first.  Easy to spend a few days here to do it justice.  Some great designated camping spots some with loos and showers.  Halls Gap is a small township about 1/2 way into the park.  Some of the rock formations are in the shape of all kinds of animals and amazing how they are balanced and formed.  Rock climbing and abseiling can be done in the park with organised tour groups and it would be a fantastic thing to do (if you like that kind of adrenalin kick).  Surprisingly there are a couple of lakes that we weren’t expecting.  We visited Mackenzie Falls which were flowing even though there isn’t a lot of water around.  In January 2006 a lightning strike caused a fire in the park with 131,000 hectares being burnt.  It took fire fighters 18 days to declare that they had the fire under control.  Its great to see how the bush has regenerated with new growth, all looking very healthy.  A lot of black tree trunks with new green growth stands out.  We read that not only fauna needs fire to survive but the heath mouse also relies on fires.  After this fire the heath mouse population exploded – this is because their diet is new plant shoots and as the growth gets old and deteriorates, the heath mouse’s population declines – one for the quiz night.  We stopped at Lake Bellfield for morning tea and some very friendly crimson rosellas decided they would join us.  They were very cheeky and obviously used to getting fed by picnickers.  We spent quite a bit of time with them.

No comments:

Post a Comment