Week 523 · Pinnacles · MacKenzie Falls · Great Western Winery
Grampians
We had a short weekend trip to western Victoria — something I needed to do for work anyway. The Grampians is a mountain range that literally pops up in an otherwise flat area, with natural beauty, lakes, waterfalls, and a lot of wildlife. We did a long hike one day to the top of the Pinnacles and a shorter one to MacKenzie Falls the other day.
We started with a hike to the Balconies — a short walk from the car that had a pretty amazing view of the forest — and then pushed on to the Pinnacles. It seemed a lot longer than the 2.1km marked on the sign — about 1,200 feet of elevation change — with slot canyons on the way up and great views from the top.
Saw a lot of kangaroos — many running out in front of my car. I didn't hit any, but there was a lot of carcass on the road from others with slower reactions than me. Once we got to the AirBnB, we had kangaroos and wallabies outside our door.
Although only a couple of hours from Melbourne, Dadswells Bridge is very remote. Our AirBnB was 30 minutes from the nearest place to eat. The remoteness also meant it was very dark — and we were finally in a remote dark place, with a clear sky and no moon. You could see the Milky Way galaxy and we were able to get some good pictures with an iPhone. No elaborate long-exposure setup required.
Stopped by one of the oldest wineries in Australia on the return — Great Western/Seppelt. It was pretty interesting as it had miles of underground caves built in the 1800s to store wine — the gold diggers needed to do something once the gold ran out. It was good to be in the caves as it was around 100 degrees. We headed home — but the next day they had historically poor fire conditions with hot temps, hot dry winds, and a full shutdown of all work was mandated in the area. Unfortunately a bushfire started and burned a lot of the area we had been in the prior day. And like Oklahoma — late afternoon thunderstorms came in with tornadoes, which is rare in Australia.
"They invite the new Australian Prime Minister for a special dinner when elected. Only one has accepted."
We have Super Monday in Australia for the Super Bowl — the game starts about 10am local time. I had planned to go to a local establishment to watch, but I was scheduled into some meetings on Monday and missed most of the game.
Because of the Swiftie factor, the game was on in the lunch room at work and I got to see the 4th quarter (but missed overtime). I had to address the following questions:
And I had to clarify — there are no ties. This is America.
Speaking of Taylor Swift — she came to Melbourne for the biggest concert series in Australian history (and her biggest as well). We had to leave because we were priced out of our AirBnB and went to Tasmania — so we missed history. A little homework for people over the next month: the F1 is coming to Melbourne, so watch a couple of episodes of "Drive to Survive" to get a sense of the F1.