This article is about what my family and I did over the holidays at the end of the first term. The holidays were only two weeks long. During the first week, I mostly stayed at home, but during the second week of holidays we went to the Grampians, a range of mountains and national park in Victoria. I took some photos there, so all of the pictures in this post were taken by me.
While we were still in South Australia, we crossed a part of the Murray river which is downriver from the part that makes most of the New South Wales/Victoria border. Afterward, if we were going farther southward, our route would have taken us along the Coorong, a narrow 160 km long body of water that extends along the coast, but hardly reaches the sea the whole way.
Our main stop while driving through Victoria on the way to the Grampians was Mount Arapiles, a large mountain in the middle of a flat expanse of farming fields. On one side, Mount Arapiles is shaped like a plateau, with a level top and steep, tall cliffs at the side. It is extremely popular and well known for its rock climbs. We stopped and camped for the night so that we could have time to explore the rock formations there.
After we set up our tents at a campground near the climbs, me and one of my brothers went to explore the cliffs. The main features there include the Organ Pipes, which is a row of rock columns in the main cliff face, and a very large rocky bluff that appears to loom over the trees at the campsite and is easily visible from many directions. At the side of the bluff, there is a huge unbroken cliff which stretches along the entire length of the bluff and is so tall that climbers need to use four or five pitches to get to the top. During the walk, we passed a very large number of rock climbs, and a lot of climbers as well. I also got to see a lot of native wildlife, including kangaroos and wallabies.
In the morning on the next day, my brothers and my dad went to try some of the climbs. The place we climbed was on a relatively small rock outcrop at the base of the enormous bluff. A plaque for the original discoverer of Mount Arapiles is set halfway up the cliff there, and we climbed near the plaque. After finishing a climb, I saw a fox walking along the bottom of the cliff(Foxes are common in Australia, but they are non-native and very bad for the native wildlife).
In the early afternoon, we walked up a side valley to the summit of the bluff. The view there was amazing, and the flat horizon was unbroken except for the hazy outline of the Grampians.
Most of the mountains in the Grampians have a peculiar shape, due to their formation. On our first day there, we went to a lookout where we could clearly see the shape of the mountains. They were most likely formed by layers of hard sandstone, which were tilted at an angle and then got eroded. The tilt of the original rock layers gives a lot of the mountains a long, gradual slope on one side, and a steep slope with cliffs on the other. They are all pointed roughly the same direction. This makes the Grampians an excellent place for bushwalking, because people can walk up one slope of a mountain and see a good view from the cliffs at the other side. We did many walks like this.
One of the first few walks we did in our six-day stay in the Grampians was a six hour walk that went from Halls Gap, a small town in between the mountains, to the Pinnacles, a place at the top of a mountain that has wide views of an entire valley from the top of an overhanging cliff.
The rock features that we saw along the way include the Venus Baths, which is a group of perfectly round rock pools at the base of the mountain, a small gorge known as the Grand Canyon, and a very long, narrow cleft called Silent Street. The walls of these gorges looked very unusual, as if they were made of round rocks stacked on top of each other in layers, and I thought it was strange how the gorges seemed to muffle all of the sound from outside. Silent Street seems like it was appropriately named, because if you stand in the gorge and not make any sound, it can get perfectly quiet.
Another place that we went to in the Grampians, and a place that I highly recommend if you go there and are adventurous, is Hollow Mountain. Hollow Mountain is surrounded by stony plains and is close to Mount Zero. It is near the edge of the mountain range. After we did a long rock scramble to get to it, we arrived at what looked like a boring rectangular bluff. It is much more interesting than it looks, however, because if you go into one of the openings at the side, it leads into a spectacular sandstone cave system. At one place, the mountain is filled with these caves, making it hollow. Once you scramble up the rocks in the largest cave, you can get to a famous rock window on the other side, which is very high up and has a view of the plains and many of the other mountains, including Mount Zero.
Another of the mountains we climbed was Mount Rosea, in a completely different part of the mountains, which also had good views, but unfortunately the summit was surrounded by mist, so we did not have good views from there. When we were walking up Mount Rosea, we crossed a bridge over the Gate of the East Wind, an extremely deep, narrow chasm through the mountain.
In the Grampians, there are a few places where someone could have a good view that does not require a very difficult walk. We went to some of these. One of the views included the valley that Halls Gap is in, and from that view we could also see the reservoir in that valley and the fields behind the mountains.
We did many things for our last few days in the Grampians. One of those things was that we visited two old, abandoned towns. The first one was planned to be built around a quarry, but was never finished. There was a lot of old, rusty mining equipment lying around near the quarry. The second one was called Mafeking. It was built during a gold rush, but got completely abandoned after 20 years when the gold rush was over. In both towns, most of the old buildings were taken down when the town was abandoned, so in Mafeking there is hardly anything left except for mining pits.
Another of the things we went to in the last few days was Mt William, which has a road going up it. The road is closed for public vehicles for the last stretch, so we had to walk up the road to the summit. Because there are not very many trees on the slopes that we walked up, we had very good views on the way up. From the summit, a lot of the other mountains are visible, however, when we were there, controlled burning was being done in the mountains and in the surrounding fields, so there was a lot of smoke.
On our last day in the trip to the Grampians, we hiked to the Chimney Pots, a group of enormous smokestack-shaped rock features protruding out of a mountain. They look very strange, and they are clearly made of many layers. They resemble the sides of the Grand Canyon, a feature from another walk we did in the Grampians.
The last walk we did on our trip was a short walk to the top of a dam that we could see from our campsite at Halls Gap. We took the walk so that we could see the sunset from the dam. Behind the dam was a reservoir which spanned the entire valley. Walking along the dam and looking over the trees and the water, I could see the rock features around the valley very clearly. I could also see the general shape of the valley.
We did not do much on the way back, except for stopping for lunch and to look at some murals in a small town near the Coorong in South Australia.
The Grampians is an amazing place. The mountain range is so large that we met some people we met there had been living there and doing walks frequently for over half a year and had not seen very much of it. For adventurous bushwalkers there is a multi-day hike going across the park. It was a good road trip for us, but six days was not nearly enough to explore the massive scale of the Grampians.
Here are a few more photos from the trip:
More pictures from the dam:
While we were still in South Australia, we crossed a part of the Murray river which is downriver from the part that makes most of the New South Wales/Victoria border. Afterward, if we were going farther southward, our route would have taken us along the Coorong, a narrow 160 km long body of water that extends along the coast, but hardly reaches the sea the whole way.
Our main stop while driving through Victoria on the way to the Grampians was Mount Arapiles, a large mountain in the middle of a flat expanse of farming fields. On one side, Mount Arapiles is shaped like a plateau, with a level top and steep, tall cliffs at the side. It is extremely popular and well known for its rock climbs. We stopped and camped for the night so that we could have time to explore the rock formations there.
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| The Organ Pipes at Mount Arapiles |
After we set up our tents at a campground near the climbs, me and one of my brothers went to explore the cliffs. The main features there include the Organ Pipes, which is a row of rock columns in the main cliff face, and a very large rocky bluff that appears to loom over the trees at the campsite and is easily visible from many directions. At the side of the bluff, there is a huge unbroken cliff which stretches along the entire length of the bluff and is so tall that climbers need to use four or five pitches to get to the top. During the walk, we passed a very large number of rock climbs, and a lot of climbers as well. I also got to see a lot of native wildlife, including kangaroos and wallabies.
 |
| The bluff at Arapiles |
In the morning on the next day, my brothers and my dad went to try some of the climbs. The place we climbed was on a relatively small rock outcrop at the base of the enormous bluff. A plaque for the original discoverer of Mount Arapiles is set halfway up the cliff there, and we climbed near the plaque. After finishing a climb, I saw a fox walking along the bottom of the cliff(Foxes are common in Australia, but they are non-native and very bad for the native wildlife).
In the early afternoon, we walked up a side valley to the summit of the bluff. The view there was amazing, and the flat horizon was unbroken except for the hazy outline of the Grampians.
 |
| The shape of the mountains |
Most of the mountains in the Grampians have a peculiar shape, due to their formation. On our first day there, we went to a lookout where we could clearly see the shape of the mountains. They were most likely formed by layers of hard sandstone, which were tilted at an angle and then got eroded. The tilt of the original rock layers gives a lot of the mountains a long, gradual slope on one side, and a steep slope with cliffs on the other. They are all pointed roughly the same direction. This makes the Grampians an excellent place for bushwalking, because people can walk up one slope of a mountain and see a good view from the cliffs at the other side. We did many walks like this.
One of the first few walks we did in our six-day stay in the Grampians was a six hour walk that went from Halls Gap, a small town in between the mountains, to the Pinnacles, a place at the top of a mountain that has wide views of an entire valley from the top of an overhanging cliff.
The rock features that we saw along the way include the Venus Baths, which is a group of perfectly round rock pools at the base of the mountain, a small gorge known as the Grand Canyon, and a very long, narrow cleft called Silent Street. The walls of these gorges looked very unusual, as if they were made of round rocks stacked on top of each other in layers, and I thought it was strange how the gorges seemed to muffle all of the sound from outside. Silent Street seems like it was appropriately named, because if you stand in the gorge and not make any sound, it can get perfectly quiet.
Another place that we went to in the Grampians, and a place that I highly recommend if you go there and are adventurous, is Hollow Mountain. Hollow Mountain is surrounded by stony plains and is close to Mount Zero. It is near the edge of the mountain range. After we did a long rock scramble to get to it, we arrived at what looked like a boring rectangular bluff. It is much more interesting than it looks, however, because if you go into one of the openings at the side, it leads into a spectacular sandstone cave system. At one place, the mountain is filled with these caves, making it hollow. Once you scramble up the rocks in the largest cave, you can get to a famous rock window on the other side, which is very high up and has a view of the plains and many of the other mountains, including Mount Zero.
Another of the mountains we climbed was Mount Rosea, in a completely different part of the mountains, which also had good views, but unfortunately the summit was surrounded by mist, so we did not have good views from there. When we were walking up Mount Rosea, we crossed a bridge over the Gate of the East Wind, an extremely deep, narrow chasm through the mountain.
In the Grampians, there are a few places where someone could have a good view that does not require a very difficult walk. We went to some of these. One of the views included the valley that Halls Gap is in, and from that view we could also see the reservoir in that valley and the fields behind the mountains.
Another of the things we went to in the last few days was Mt William, which has a road going up it. The road is closed for public vehicles for the last stretch, so we had to walk up the road to the summit. Because there are not very many trees on the slopes that we walked up, we had very good views on the way up. From the summit, a lot of the other mountains are visible, however, when we were there, controlled burning was being done in the mountains and in the surrounding fields, so there was a lot of smoke.
 |
| The chimney pots |
On our last day in the trip to the Grampians, we hiked to the Chimney Pots, a group of enormous smokestack-shaped rock features protruding out of a mountain. They look very strange, and they are clearly made of many layers. They resemble the sides of the Grand Canyon, a feature from another walk we did in the Grampians.
The last walk we did on our trip was a short walk to the top of a dam that we could see from our campsite at Halls Gap. We took the walk so that we could see the sunset from the dam. Behind the dam was a reservoir which spanned the entire valley. Walking along the dam and looking over the trees and the water, I could see the rock features around the valley very clearly. I could also see the general shape of the valley.
We did not do much on the way back, except for stopping for lunch and to look at some murals in a small town near the Coorong in South Australia.
The Grampians is an amazing place. The mountain range is so large that we met some people we met there had been living there and doing walks frequently for over half a year and had not seen very much of it. For adventurous bushwalkers there is a multi-day hike going across the park. It was a good road trip for us, but six days was not nearly enough to explore the massive scale of the Grampians.
Here are a few more photos from the trip:
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| "At the side of the bluff, there is a huge unbroken cliff which stretches along the entire length of the bluff and is so tall that climbers need to use four or five pitches to get to the top." |
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| Some cliffs near Halls Gap |
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| Another view of the inside of Hollow Mountain |
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| The view out of the rock window at Hollow Mountain |
