January 27, 2008
You thought we'd abandoned you, didn't you? No such luck. Instead, we've been trying to get some long-distance hiking in. But this time it was our luck that wasn't so good.
The Grampians were, indeed, beautiful, and the fact that the campsite serves as a feeding ground for at least a dozen kangaroos (plus babies!), habituated to humans, was a huge plus. David got lots and lots of photos, and not a few videos, which may even be uploaded, sometime we find a decent connection. (We've been relying on that almost-perfect institution, the public library, for our internet access, which works well, but has the disadvantage of time limitations and more security conscious systems.) The only downside to the Grampians is that having survived an enormous bushfire two years ago, the part of the park where you're normally allowed to go bushcamping is currently not open to the public. Sigh. But we did get some very nice day hikes in.
Through the vagaries of travel, we ended up in Port Fairy for a few days. It's a charming little coastal town that reminded us more of England than anything else, especially the little island that is protected because it's a bird habitat, which is very reminiscent of Farne islands off England's northern coast. But the birds were nothing, really, to the six wallabies who live there and let us take their pictures.
Dragging ourselves away from the wallabies, we eventually made it to Portland, home of the Great South West Walk, which we were interested in. We did a six-day circuit, not the whole 250 kms, along the coast, and discovered two things: one, we both have a latent, but powerful hatred for flies; and two, while coast lines are all very nice to look at for short periods, walking along them for several days in a row, with fierce sea breezes blowing and no trees or bushes to hide behind for cover, they're not actually our favorite walking terrain. But it was quite nice, really, and we saw two koalas up close, so who are we to complain.
