Grampians Challenge (Itinerary, Boronia Peak)

As much as I love urban life, sometimes one just needs to escape the traffic and noise to see wide open skies and breathe fresh air. At 3:00am, I woke up to the buzzing sound of my alarm, hopped out of bed in record time. Not a bad effort for someone who had just gotten three hours of sleep. I scrambled into the kitchen, cranked up the oven, pulled out 24 party pastries and bung them into the oven. This will be lunch for the gang. With perfect timing (3:45am), my friends arrived just outside the entrance of my humble apartment and we were all set to hit the road towards the Grampians National Park, a first for me. Initially, I thought I would be too excited to shut my eyes, but the sleepy head in me crept in and I dozed off throughout the rest of the ride. After a three and a half hours drive, we finally saw the sign we were looking for – “Halls Gap, The heart of the Grampians”.

Before I start babbling on about my stories, here’s a quick run-through of our two day Grampian challenge.

Day 1

• Melbourne CBD –> Ballarat –> Ararat –> Halls Gap
• Boronia Peak (Medium, ~ 2 hours, 6.6km return)
• Mt Williams Summit (Medium, ~ 1 hour, 3.6km return)
• Boroka Lookout (Easy)
• Reed Lookout/ the Balconies (Easy, ~45 mins, 2km return)
• Pinnacle via Grand Canyon (Hard, ~2-3 hours, 4.2km return)
• Dinner at The Views (#1 on TripAdvisor) 

Day 2

• Mackenzie Falls (Medium, ~1 hour, 2km return)
• Briggs Bluff via Beehive Falls (Hard, ~5-6 hours, 10.6km return)

Booronia Peak

When we arrived at Tandara Road Carpark, the weather was perfect, sunny yet embraced with cool breeze. My three friends chatted away, while something caught my attention, some grey and furry object moved. "Oh my gawk!!.....Kangaroos!!!" There were three or four of them along the fence line by the road, one even had a joey in its pouch. I clumsily rummaged my bag to find my camera, by the time I had it out, this is the best I could manage – it’s BUTT =.=

Stupid sign board. Having said that, seeing them bouncing around an open field was heaps better than the time I saw dozens lying around in the zoo. That was so “Aussie!!”. Without further ado, we began our steady and quick hike towards Boronia Peak. It was a fairly steep climb but still manageable. The only way to reach the peak was to scramble up the rocky summit on all fours. Once we emerged from the ragged rocks, the picturesque view of Fyans Valley displayed before our eyes was spectacular. My excitement was cut short as I felt my knees buckled. Then it dawned upon me that I was no good with heights. What was I thinking? What was I thinking?! The narrow summit was just broad enough to accommodate the four of us. My three friends were roaming around the edges, while I spent that time trying real hard to enjoy the silent stillness. We were 15 minutes in before I had the nerve to stand up. Every which way you turn the panoramic views were stunning. Unexpectedly, this elegant little pit stop has cost us 45 minutes!

During our descend back to the car, I heard a sudden rustling of leaves. This time, a Wallaby! It was a mixture of excitement and dismay for me as I captured yet another BUTT.

I gestured to my friends to come have a look into the bushes. Keat squinted as she arched forward, and proudly blurred out: “It’s a rock!”. The rest of us, couldn’t help but burst out into laughter. How in the world can one associate wallabies with rocks. However, her innocent claim/ joke turned out to be half true. This wallaby is known as brush-tailed rock-wallaby and is the only species of Rock-wallaby that occurs in Victoria. I reckon their ability to hide their heads behind objects while their brown-greyish backs enable them to blend in with their natural habited resembling rocks is a way to wean off the prying eyes of their prey.

Next stop: Mount William Summit