Camping trip to the Grampians

This weekend Dan and I took a much needed camping trip to the Grampians, which are a mountain range located in Victoria's north-west. I had only been there once before, and even then it wasn't really a proper trip there. So I was pretty excited to be going somewhere new!

Working for a farming organisation, I was pretty excited to be driving through new country and able to check out the tiny baby lambs and canola that's currently flowering. The country side looked amazing!

We stopped off at a couple of wineries on the way, because that's how we roll (This may be the time to comment that the detox of last week was...well, not a fail, but not really a win). Mount Langi Ghiran was the second winery we checked out, which was actually by the same people as the first one. Langi means 'home' in aboriginal, but the meaning of Ghiran has been lost in the sands of time. Which is sad considering this is our culture that is lost, the culture of our land and it's original inhabitants.

Once we reached the Grampians and decided where we were going to camp, it was a 30km drive on a very crappy road which our little girl car didn't handle well. I couldn't get over the terrain though - it was very Outback/desert -like, which I just didn't expect at all! Red earth, grass trees, and even an friggen emu! In the wild! In Victoria! Phenomenal. We also saw a black snake, an echidna, and an overturned four wheel drive who had lost control trying to avoid one a stumpy tailed lizard

When we reached our campsite it was perfect - gorgeous view, far enough from other people but not too much to feel isolated. Sadly it was my first camping purely for the sake of camping trip - every other time has been at festivals or hiking. So it was nice to not have much to do at all. Dinner was cuppa noodles with broccoli (yes, I love that shit), and plenty of toasted marshmallows over the open fire. We then gazed awestruck at the night sky for a good several hours. Living in the city it's easy to forget that there are SO many stars out there. Absolutely stunning.

After waking up early with the dawn chorus and seeing a kangaroo just hanging out near the tent, it was time for the best meal of the day - breakfast! After scoffing at how Dan was making the cheese toasties, I realised it worked and had to get in amongst that action.  

A cheese toastie, two coffees and some vegetarian sausages later and we were ready to ROCK! First stop was Hollow Mountain, a two hour walk which was hopefully not going to destroy my knee. I dosed up on anti-inflammitories and off we went. It was a lot of fun. The first section was again quite desert-y, and then the rest of rock scrambling to the top. The view was phenomenal. Stupidity was had.

All in all, it was a great weekend!