May 25th-29th - The Grampians: A Complete and Utter Adventure

     While looking at the camping stuff in Josh's car Amanda walks by:

Amanda: Wow, you have a lot of camping stuff there.
Josh and I: Sure do.
Amanda: Yeah, you could go camping like, tomorrow if you wanted to.
Josh and I: Yeah.... yeah we could...
   
     And then we went.

     A note we left in the common room at 8 am that read:

"Moose and J-Mac have run away together- the hall isn't big enough for the both of us."

     And we didn't know when we were coming back, we didn't know where we were staying. We had Lemon Lime Bitters and 4 boxes of cookies. And we drove in the rain. Listening to various kick ass road trip songs.

   
     Until we drove past a gourge-

Josh: Ooo, that looks cool.
Me: Yeah, I wonder what it is?
Josh: Wanna go find it and find out?
Me: F*ck yeah.

     And then we did.

     Trying to find out way back to the highway we went past this and I made Josh do a Uturn to go back so I could take pictures.

     YAY! Quinte Area wins at something against Australia! We have the bigger fruit based tourist attraction!

     Then we saw a sign that said "Scenic Look Out 5km >"

     So we went there.

     Windy as hell.

Behind Josh is where we'd come from.

That is where we are going.

     After going for a walk and taking cute tree climbing pictures (see facebook) we got back into the car as fast as we could to escape the wind. It however didn't want us to leave and expressed this by pulling my hair into the door.

     We found kangaroo's in Halls Gap on the way to the campsite (kanga's and campsites are in the video) and headed out to MacKenzie Falls (also in the video, but here are some pictures):

     Gorgeous. No we did not stay on the path, what would be in the fun in that?

     Sunset was at about 6pm so we headed back the campsite to have dinner by the campfire. Remember that wood in the video? (If not remember this for said video wood) Not dry. Not dry at all. Could not for the life of me get it lit. So green and so damp. I tried for an hour as Josh made dinner. When it became clear there was no way we were going to get a fire and that the one torch (flashlight) we had was not going to cut it we decided to go inside the tent, hunker down into our many blankets and have dinner and Bowler's Run by the light of our iPods. :) We talked for hours into the darkness of the night but since it was so dark and cold out there was no point stay up past 9pm anyway.

      Day 2 was lots of hiking, high places and lookouts. Lots of jumping safey barriours and crawling out where ever we were told not to. Don't worry Mom, anyone watching always knew to send my body back to Canada.

     That night we stayed at Josh's friend Vanessa's house in Stawell (pronounced Stall with a long 'a' if you ask an Aussie). A really sweet girl her life is being ruined by a lazy manager at the local McDonalds. She dropped out of school to move into the middle of no where with this guy to flip a house. They've had it for quite some time and have done ever little. If she doesn't get out of this fast she never will and is such a shame.


     They insisted we go to see The Giant Koala and I still hadn't cuddled one yet, so it's of course we went, and of course I cuddled it.

     Then came what is always hte hardest thing to log about - the most amazing part. I've been trying to describe the feeling of what places like Mount Hollow do to me - I've ranted about it several times over skype and Matt even tried to screen grab it as a video, I wish we knew of a way were you could do that because I get into this strange mood when I talk about it and don't really know how to express myself. All I can say is that its one of my favourite feelings. Its got to be a kind of zen, I bet you can get it from meditation. A moment where it is just me, no thoughts, no judgements, no questions just a purity and clarity of moment where I know that there is nothing else but me. My worth does not rely on other, on objects on experience. My worth and who I am is contained in my body and no where else. I feel more focused and in my own self then any other moment - I felt this way when I was on top of the mountain in the outback. Something about climbing mountains does this to me I think. Common factors were that both time i started the jounry with someone but got to the top on my own, and the sun was up (or in the first cast was setting). I could see for kilometers and there was little in my way. Who knows maybe it was the higher altitue and I was getting less oxygen but all I know is that now I feel the need to seek it out. Check out the pictures.

      I wasn't ready to go home, but we'd done most of the stuff that we could in the area so Josh suggested we go to Shepaerton/MooRoopna where he grew up so we could drop off the camping gear. He called his parents and told them we would be there in a few hours (which I was shocked about, my mom would freak if I dropped in like that) and we drop cross country blasting The Glitch Mob going far to fast and having a dangerous blast.
I took no pictures in Shep, but some where taken of me and once I get them it will be in a very interesting update.


      The current plan is to go back to Shepp before I go because there were some cool things I missed out on doing there (anyone whos been there will know I'm talking basically only about Kidstown) and there will be another update about that trip when it happens.


Oh and here's the aforementioned video:

20 Days to Go


There's no place like...