There are a couple of boys that have grown up in the 4WD Club, Jerren and Jerrick, who are now young men. They have moved to Melbourne for work and came up this weekend to meet up and offer to show us around the Grampians. We have affectionally called it “J&J 4WD Tours”. It was a leisurely start allowing for the kids in the group to meet the animals that the Halls Gap Zoo had brought to the campground.
Our first stop was the Balconies or what it used to be called, “Jaws of Death”. This outcrop is at the end of a 1km walk and is a couple of ledges hanging out into the valley which resemble the jaws of a large lizard. Very spectacular. They are now fenced off but it didn’t stop the adventurous to go out for a photo opportunity.
The next stop was to be the Boreang Picnic Area for lunch, which was a turn left and follow your nose. Just before the turnoff, there was a geocache to be found so I stopped off telling the others I would catch them up over the radio.
After beating my way through the scrub, the cache was only 20 metres off the road, searching for what must have been 10 minutes, I gave up with a Did Not Find (DNF) and proceeded to take the turnoff.
About a kilometre down the road, the road was closed but the track continued to the left and I could still hear the group on the UHF. Another 4 km down the track and a cross roads. Which way did they go. I could still hear them on the UHF so I tried to call them but no response. Oh well, I will just try each direction until they are found.
More closed tracks were found and eventually I was down at Lake Bellfield and at the Boreang Huts Picnic Ground. This was not the right one.
The tour plan had been to go to the McKenzie Falls after lunch so after grabbing some geocaches at the dam wall of Lake Bellfield, I headed to the Falls. Hopefully they were there.
Arriving at the Falls, I met up with another of the crew that had got separated and eventually got a text that they were ½ an hour away. Knowing that most would not make the trek down to the Falls I headed down. Luckily it wasn’t a hot day as you would need a lot of water if it was. There are a lot of steps down to the bottom and it was like Rundle Street with a constant stream of visitors today.
At the base it was almost standing room only but after making a climb to a geocache, photos could be taken that made it look like I was the only one there. After a rest it was time to tackle the climb back up and as I reached the top, I was met by the group. I was correct, they were not going to make the trek down and we checked a couple of the other lookouts on the rim of the valley, comparing stories of our day.
With the group now back together, there was one more stop before getting back to camp at the Boroka Lookout. You could have thought that you were just driving through a forest on the way but when you arrived, it was obvious that there was some elevation to this spot with spectacular views over Halls Gap and the Wimmera region.
Back to camp and despite being very cold, we braved the elements to talk war stories of the day until late.
