After the Dunkeld horse races, Zack and I spent the night camping in the Grampians with Todd and Alena. I was excited to have found American-style marshmallows at the South Melbourne Market, so we could make proper S'mores!
The boys went scrounging around the campground for some wood and came back with several dead trees. In no time at all, they had a huge fire going!
We enjoyed our S'mores and played with some sparklers before going to bed. We also enjoyed stargazing, as there were thousands visible from our campsite. And I finally found the Southern Cross constellation in the sky!
In the morning, I caught this kangaroo licking the leftover chocolate from our S'mores off the tray. Yum!
We spent the morning rock climbing. As usual, I was not very good at it, but I made it up every route I tried (just a lot more slowly than everyone else!). Here's a picture of Zack doing a climb, but the camera was on a weird setting, so that's why it looks strange.
After some climbing, we hiked over to where we were going to do some abseiling. On the way, we found an echidna, and our rock climbing guide said we could pet it (I had always thought they were too sharp to touch). It felt like running your hand over a bunch of little plastic knitting needles.
Then we did some abseiling in the same spot we had done it when we visited the Grampians in March. It wasn't scary at all this time, and I went a lot faster on the way down. That's me at the top of this picture!
It was a beautiful weekend for camping and climbing, and we ended our time in the Grampians with a delicious lunch at a little cafe at the Mount Zero Olive Grove. I bought some of their delicious oil, along with lentils and falafel mix. So yummy. Though it's more than a three hour drive from Melbourne, we love spending the weekend in the Grampians!
The South Melbourne Market Tram 96 stop near our place-here I am sending Jon off at the end of his stay.
Back in September, our friend Jon came out to Australia for a three week trip. Before and after his tours of Sydney, Western Australia, and Tasmania, he stayed with us in Melbourne. I've known Jon for about seven years. He was one of the first people to join the soccer team I started back in Denver, and he keeps the Smurf team going today! The Smurfs used to do a lot of camping, karaoke nights, parties, and BBQs together back in the day. It was good to reconnect with a Colorado friend.
Jon and I biked down to Brighton Beach on the afternoon he arrived, with a stop in St Kilda. We got some takeaway from Bala's and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. Luckily, we had a nice, sunny day for our ride.
The next day, I drove Jon down part of the Great Ocean Road.
He was lucky enough to get to see several Australian animals all in one day!
I spotted this echidna on the side of the road; it looks like it got its nose stuck in some sort of ring!
We saw plenty of kangaroos on the Anglesea golf course.
Jon has a pretty sweet zoom lens, so I used his camera to get this shot of a guy at Bells Beach.
We didn't go all the way to Cape Otway Road, but we saw plenty of koalas near Kennett River.
And while we were out of the car looking for koalas, I spotted a kookaburra!
So I'd say it was a pretty successful day trip down to the Great Ocean Road and hopefully a good start to Jon's Australian experience. He has some cool pictures of the other parts of his trip (and all his trips-he's quite the world traveler) on his website-check it out: www.sunlightpeak.com/travel/
Thanks for the cool pictures Jon, and I hope you enjoyed your time in Australia!
It wasn't easy, but we found a place in Melbourne that serves kangaroo for dinner!
On Saturday, Zack and I drove to Lysterfield Park to do some mountain biking. This park, which is about forty-five minutes away from our place, has tons of trails through the woods. We rode some good singletrack, especially enjoying the trails that were specifically for bikers. My favorite part was finding wallabies and kangaroos throughout our ride. You haven't really lived until a mother and baby kangaroo hop across the path in front of you while you're biking!
I wanted a shot with me riding near the pretty flowers.
There were also tons of butterflies flying around, just like on our Great Ocean Road hike, and pretty purple wildflowers along the path. There were some challenging, technical parts, which Zack could handle better than me, and some of the uphill sections kicked my butt, but it was still a good time.
These two kangaroos later hopped in front of me on the bike path!
On our drive out of the park, Zack yelled "porcupine" and hit the brakes. I immediately knew that he had seen an echidna (pronounced uh-KID-nuh), and I'd been wanting to see one in the wild for a long time. I raced out of the car with my camera, and sure enough, this spiky guy was crawling around in the grass near the road!
Echidnas are also known as spiny anteaters. The bottom left of this picture shows its pointy snout. Along with the platypus, echidnas are the only monotremes (egg-laying mammals) in the world, and they can only be found in Australia and New Guinea. Pretty cool, huh?
As we got closer, this echidna balled up and stuck out his spines. This picture shows a close-up of the prickly-ness. We didn't try to pet it!
Mountain biking in Australia is a bit different than it was in Colorado or Utah. Kangaroos instead of deer surprise you in the woods. Dirt paths with tree roots are more common than the red, rocky terrain. Butterflies surround your head instead of mountaintop views, and an echidna might cross your path instead of a rattlesnake. I'll take it for now!
Jon and I biked down to Brighton Beach on the afternoon he arrived, with a stop in St Kilda. We got some takeaway from Bala's and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. Luckily, we had a nice, sunny day for our ride.
So I'd say it was a pretty successful day trip down to the Great Ocean Road and hopefully a good start to Jon's Australian experience. He has some cool pictures of the other parts of his trip (and all his trips-he's quite the world traveler) on his website-check it out: www.sunlightpeak.com/travel/
On our drive out of the park, Zack yelled "porcupine" and hit the brakes. I immediately knew that he had seen an echidna (pronounced uh-KID-nuh), and I'd been wanting to see one in the wild for a long time. I raced out of the car with my camera, and sure enough, this spiky guy was crawling around in the grass near the road!
Echidnas are also known as spiny anteaters. The bottom left of this picture shows its pointy snout. Along with the platypus, echidnas are the only monotremes (egg-laying mammals) in the world, and they can only be found in Australia and New Guinea. Pretty cool, huh?
