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We left Mildura aiming to drive to Warracknabeal to stop over for two nights. When we arrived at Warracknabeal and found the caravan park there was a sign at the entrance to say the park was full. We didn't mind too much because neither of us was too interested in staying there after seeing it. From Mildura to Warracknabeal is a three hour drive but we decided to push on to the next town to see if we could find a park there. It was lunch time by now so we drove over the road to Apex Park in Warracknabeal which was beside a lovely little creek and parked so that we could have lunch before moving on. The next caravan park we found was at Rupanyul but when we drove in we realised this was just an overnight park and it was already full. After a very complicated turn trying to get out of this park we were back on the road heading for Hall's Gap but hoping we could find somewhere on the way to stay, we didn't and eventually we were so close to Hall's Gap we decided to go there and just stay a few days extra. After a very long day's driving we eventually arrived in Hall's Gap, we noticed a Big4 Caravan Park and because we are members of Big4 and we were both very tired we called in here to see if we could get a site. We were allocated an excellent drive through site which we easily found and it wasn't long before we were set up for our stay. Once set up we sat outside for a while and we had a visit from two families of ducks who weren't a bit worried about us and sat right in front of the van enjoying the bit of sunshine on the grass, very cute. It wasn't a late night for either of us, a bit of a play on social media and dinner and then off to bed for a read.
The next morning we were up planning our time here, we decided just to have a lazy day today, I had computer problems the day before and wanted to sort these out and I also had photos and my blog I wanted to catch up with and we both had a few jobs we wanted to do. We drove into the town centre for coffee and visited the Black Panther cafe, not the best experience we have had, we had to remind them three times about our order and while the coffee was good Robb had ordered a muffin and it was very gluggy. We discussed our plans for the next few days and then returned to our van where we did the few jobs that needed doing before lunch and then just relaxing outside. We made a few phone calls to family but didn't do much else for the rest of the day. I am happy that I sorted out my computer problems and caught up with all the jobs I wanted to do. We are both looking forward to tomorrow after such a good relaxing day today.
Monday we were up and ready for looking around the Grampians. We called in for a traveler at the Black Panther, even though our experience wasn't great the previous day the coffee wasn't too bad. We are both amazed at the number of people here, trying to get a table is difficult and not easy to practice social distancing. We had decided to circumnavigate The Grampians on a recommended trip so with the map in hand we set off for our first stop. The towns we visited on this tour were Pomonal, Moyston, Willaura, Glenthompson, Dunkeld, Cavendish, Brimpaen, Laharum, Dadswells Bridge and then back to Hall's Gap. We stopped at The Bridge Cafe in Cavenish for lunch. We really wanted a pub meal but I had a hamburger and Robb had fish and chips, a bit light on fish and heavy on chips but both meals were very enjoyable. It was a longer day than we first thought and when we arrived back into Hall's Gap we went in search of fuel but unfortunately the fuel station was having repairs and we had to turn around and drive back to Stawell which added another hour to our day. Left overs for dinner tonight seeing we had a big lunch and time to plan our day tomorrow.
Tuesday we were back to the Black Panther for coffee and then we drove to McKenzie Falls for a viewing. On the way we stopped off at Boroka Lookout for what we both think are some of the most amazing views we have seen, and we have seen some great views. When we arrived at McKenzie Falls we had to decided which way to go and chose the 860m walk to the MacKenzie Falls lookout, and we were very thankful we did. The views down to the falls were excellent and we could see the path that we didn't take to the bottom of the falls. We believe there are 250 steps down and they didn't look particularly easy to navigate, we would have killed ourselves trying to manage these. We walked back to the car and then drove to Lake Wartook for a bit of a look, this is a huge dam that we viewed from Boroka lookout. We then drove back to Hall's Gap zoo stopping off at Reid's lookout for another view over the mountains.
We arrived at the zoo and parked, we weren't too sure it was open but as we drove in we could see quite a few cars parked out front so we parked beside them and walked inside. We had a concession entry to the zoo at $30 each which sounded a bit expensive at first but as we walked out we thought it was very good value. There is a good mixture of birds and animals here but what really impressed us was there is a circular path to follow to visit every exhibit, we have been known at some zoos to waste a lot of time walking backwards and forwards trying to see the animals we had missed out on. There were quite a few familes here and there was something for everyone to enjoy.
Our last day here we drove into Stawell to go through the Stawell Gift Hall of Fame, however, when we arrived it was not open because of Covid so we went in search of the Gold mine which we couldn't find so we had a quick look around. We needed to do a bit of shopping and the closest Aldi was in Ararat so we headed off there. On the way we visited Seppelt in Great Western, this was a great visit the manager on duty was very friendly and we came away with 4 lovely Proseccos and had a good look around the winery including the museum. Moving on we arrived in Ararat and drove directly to Aldi where we picked up the few items we needed before looking around the town. I wanted to checkout Aradale Lunatic Asylum because I had an uncle who worked here who had a mother here as a patient. I remember visiting here as a young girl and being terrified by the fact that one of the patients took a fancy to my mother and followed us around for the whole tour. Unfortunately it was not open while we were there and there had been an accident on the highway which held up the traffic and the train and we could not access the road we needed to just to have a look around. We drove to J Cell to have a bit of a look and took a few photos of the outside walls. We then walked over to the botanic gardens and what a surprise they were. I wish we had more time to walk right around but we just left everything a bit late. We walked around a bit and took lots of photos, they were so beautiful. From here we drove back to Hall's Gap where we were hoping to have lunch at Barneys just outside of the town because it had been recommended to us but unfortunately it wasn't open so we continued on to the Hall's Gap Hotel where we found a seat on the balcony which was very pleasant but this is where the good experience finished. We both ordered a porterhouse steak and wedges but we were both very disappointed. We always order medium rare and Robb's steak was cooked well but mine came out blue, the worst part though was that both the steak and wedges were only just warm when they came out. We couldn't be bothered complaining so we ate what we could and then left to drive back to the park. We packed up this afternoon getting ready to move on the next morning.
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