Day 77 - Halls Gap (The Grampions)
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2010
1
72
91
Trip End
Jan 31, 2011
Halls Gap, Victoria, Australia
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
First up was the Chataqua Peak (5.6 km round trip) which is a mountain that sits up above the town but has a wonderful view across town and out past Lake Bellfield to the mountains beyond. The walk was mainly uphill but the last section involved doing a mountain goat impersonation to get over the rocky outcrops to the summit. Great views.
Next we came back to the van to make up some lunch then we headed out to Lake Bellfield and had a sandwich and walked across the dam wall. The mountains that sit at the far end of the lake looked quite spectacular. The lake provides water to a large scale irrigation project in the Wimmera region - apparently it saved a lot of water by replacing open channels. The lake holds over 76,000, Megalitres.
Next it was on to Silverband Falls which was only a fairly short walk (about 2km round trip). The falls weren't large but were interesting because the water basically hits a pile of small rocks at the base of the falls then disappears underground. It comes up again some way down the gully.
Then it was a 15 km drive up to Mackenzie Falls. The falls were only about a 2km round trip from the car park). The falls were more spectacular but were a reasonable distance from the lookout. You can do a walk down to the base but we had had enough for one day.
All up it was quite an enjoyable day - the sun was shining but it wasn't too hot to enjoy the tracks. This is obviously an area where you can spend a bit of time if you want to get stuck into the walking tracks that are on offer.
