Climbing in the Grampians

A murky day dawned in the Grampians today, with the crags barely in view. It was quite eery walking into the gloomy burned out forest this morning.

With all the warnings of Ozzy bugs etc, we were very glad to have been staying in the van last night. I'm not sure I'd have been too happy to have found all these bit ant holes around my tent! They'd popped up overnight around the van.

Having stayed close by last night, the climbing was only a short walk away this morning and we soon located the first of several good buttresses.

The skies remained overcast, but the rain held off. Once again, it felt like we had the whole mountain range to ourselves.

There seems to be way more rock than there is rock climbers here. There are ckiffs in every direction and around every corner and only a handful were mentioned as having been climbed in our guidebook. 

We climbed as many as energy would allow, the after a very enjoyable morning, we retired to the van for some late lunch. We then decided to move onto a different area down the long (but not so winding) road ahead... 

Once back out to the joyously flat, smooth and quiet tarmac, we made better speed, but not before stopping to admire this giant koala!

We got to Halls Gap, in the heart of the Grampian mountains and nipped out for a short walk to 'Sundial Lookout'. By now through, the weather had started to change and the odd spot of rain had begun to fall. 

You could still see a fair way though. 

In between the burnt trees, were these colourful little guys. They really stood out from the black, greys and green of the bush.

The weather forecast at the tourist office, confirmed what we thought. Rain and low cloud were moving in for a few days. That rather scuppered any other climbing plans, especially as I wanted to do some big routes, but neither of us fancied getting stuck up a big cliff in the wet. 

Not to worry, down at the village cricket ground, things perked up when we noticed that kangaroos were keeping the grass cut, so we stopped off to say hi!

There were loads of them, just chilling and chomping on the grass! A fun end to a fun day.

Grampians, Summerday Valley:

- An-Tics, 11*

- De Blanc, 12*

- Regatta, 13*

- Overkill, 17*

- Steph in Soweto, 15*