CAMPSITE # 45 - The Grampians by Christian Moebius

We left Surfside camp at 10 o’clock. The drive took us through hilly countryside, grasslands spotted with little eucalyptus woods in between. The vegetation soon enough changed to woodlands of the Grampian national park, where we intended to spend a few days. The tourist information desk advised us on the different options for camp. Luckily there was a free one just 10 km away from Halls Gap.

The camp site turned out to be the lucky winner of the week and for free too!  Big lots, and there was hardly anybody on the ground. The facilities were sporadic but in good conditions because the camp had recently been set up. The shower was “model 1889”, a bucket with little holes pierced through the bottom. The bucket would be pulled up by a cord and the whole set up would make a great shower as amy was to report the next morning.

After we set up camp that first night and ran a brief recce to “great canyon”- a little canyon 20 metres across and walled by sidewalls perhaps 20 metres high. Of course the perception always is that the walls to the side are higher than the width of the gully. 

Matt Tom and I had our brief stroll, looked at rocks a little bit and left the “pinnacle lookout” which was signposted there untouched so to discover it the next day. The night proved to be a rather rainy one and it took a while to get started the next day.

Eventually it was the strong desire for a bath that drove us out and we took a short hike to a creek that had several little pools carved into the solid, massive sandstone that the water was flowing over. As a special treat we even used a little bit of shampoo- which wasn’t completely environmentally responsible because shampoo- as many other washing and cleaning agents alters the ph content of water. 

Our clean and non stinking bodies were then to be shown off at a public place which was the aboriginal museum of the grampians national park. We later took a drive up north for about 40 minutes to take a look at some rock art – shapes and colours applied to the rock by aboriginal people. The landscape was quite surreal with sandstone slabs and domes with trees and bushes in between giving the area a very prehistoric look.

Later that day Tom made a special meal on the camp oven for us and it was quite a f’ing thing. The evening ended with a poker game. It was rainy all along and we decided that if things weren’t looking better the next morning we’d have to make a decision and move on to a different place. That night all hell broke loose. 140 ml of rain is something and we were all happy the next day to open our tents and find that we were still in the same place and not washed down somewhere on a river making our way to the southern ocean. It wasn’t before too long that the park ranger came around and demanded we shall vacate the premises, the whole area was to be evacuated because of the floodings caused by the last 2 days of rain.

None of us doubted his words or was upset, we packed up and left and stopped at the tourist information center in halls gap to see what could be done in the park before we would leave once and for all, but to no avail. Pictures of destroyed roads underlined the staffs urging request to leave the area as soon as possible, and so we were; on the road again.