And we're back from the mountains

We just got back from our holiday, and I wanted to get it all blogged about before I have to go back to normal life tomorrow.

We public transported to Halls Gap, and feel like we may be the only tourists to have every done that. Everyone else seems to hire cars and campervans or come with a tour group.

We started the trip with a three day / two night hike, which is the current 36 kilometre Grampians Peaks Trail.  It's being extended, and will eventually be 13 nights, but what is there now is pretty stunning. I'm looking forward to doing the next sections of the hike as they are released.

Just before we took this picture, at the top of Mount Rosea I was thinking about how all our camping pictures look the same - we wear the exact same clothes, and even though the places we hike are very different, I don't know that the photos look that different. 

Then my hat blew off my head and down the mountain, irretrievable. So next time I will look marginally different. 

Hat is down there somewhere

The first night of camping was in a hikers camp, where each tent was on a numbered wooden platform, to minimise impact, and also because there was no flat ground. The only problem was that we couldn't use pegs to secure out tent. You can see the front is held down by rocks. I used some of my yarn as tie downs, to keep the back of the tent secured to the platform.

After two nights we got back into Hall's Gap and had the luxury of a cabin, with an indoor shower and everything. Halls Gap is a gorgeous little town, with so many kangaroos and native birds everywhere. 

Night 2 campsite

The next day we hiked out to Pomonal, where some emu's accompanied us down the track. That blue stuff sack has my knitting in it - easy to access, if I need it in a hurry.

Taking the emus for a walk

We went to Red Rock olive farm, where we stopped for lunch - and olives. I also tried olive leaf tea. I still can't work out if I like it. and I didn't want to buy a packet of it if I'm not going to drink it, so we dropped by Skip's brothers place and got a couple of branches off his olive tree. I'm currently drying them in the oven to make tissane, so I can drink more and decide if I like it or not.

Skip and Bee picked us up at lunch, and we set up camp in our mates' back paddock. 

They have super friendly animals, including a sheep called Victor who rather enjoyed a pat. 

We spent the next two days at the Grampians Music Festival, which is a pretty laid back event, and I failed to take any photos.

Then this morning, we got up, drove and then hiked to McKenzie Falls, a stunning waterfall, and got driven back home.

The whole time, I was, of course, knit knit knitting away on Leon's scarf. This is how it looks now:

I have enough yarn for a couple more of the triangles, and then the cast off, so tonight or tomorrow. It was a good choice of project - the patterning keeps it interesting, but it is easy to memorise and obvious when things have gone wrong.

And now it's the boring but necessary part of coming back from holidays - doing the washing, cleaning the house and getting ready for a normal week of work and fun.