Grampians
I was supposed to be studying, to catch up after a weekend getaway to the Grampians National Park with the Bushwalking Club.
BUT, I lost my rough work of a long mathematical derivation and am currently determined not to do it again until i find that silly sheet.
So here I am to tell my story about the trip.
For me the adventure began on Friday, as we all rushed off after class to do some last minute packing and headed off to the blockhouse where we were to meet our car pooling drivers and head off westwards to the Grampians.
We waited till 5 pm before we headed off, right into rush hour traffic at Melbourne city. Not wise. And especially not when you have one driver who has a lot to think about (I had the honour of being driven by the Club Prez Hayden), one passenger at the back who's fast asleep and a girl in front who's trying very very hard to keep awake and figure out how to keep a conversation so that Hayden won't be bored.
But of course the ride became more pleasant as soon as we got out of the city buzz.
The Aussie roads were smooth, almost straight and winded through very nice fields. And lovely sunset too.......
But of course the ride was still mostly silent, with the girl in front breaking silence occasionally to take pictures like this.
Stopped by at Ballarat to buy dinner (which some Aussies call tea, don't ask me why) from McD a.k.a Makkers where they had this very canggih conveyor system to take the food packs to the drive thru windows..... Even the American hadn't quite seen it before so it's not just Malaysians not catching up with technology.
By the time we arrived at the campsite - after getting lost and stopping to wait for others- it was almost 11pm. We got down, pitched our tents and started to chill out.
Literally chill.
That night temperature dropped to 6 degrees while a bunch of us slept outside the tent just so we could stargaze. I'm particularly proud to declare this since I have not been anywhere with temperatures below 10 so that was quite an achievement to not have perished in the cold, and more so the fact I was in only a long sleeve shirt and hoodie. But don't ask me why I rented a tent, if I wanted to sleep outside it. It's one of those unexplainable mysteries in life.
I've got no pictures to prove that we slept outdoors or stargazed, because night pictures are just hard to shoot and I needed to conserve battery power. We don't get to recharge every night in the outdoors remember?
Daybreak comes. Wee Kheong, Tai and I hang out about the campsite. My 1st encounter with a wallaby/kangaroo was out there, in the dim light of daybreak.
Then we went Bushwalking. I don't understand why they call it bushwalking anyway, since most of the walk was at higher altitutes where growth is too scarce to even be called a bush.
We had a breeze hiking up to Mount Stapylton, while we stopped by and photographed basically almost everything we saw and then later try to catch up with the group.
We finally walked ourselves up to the summit. The view was breathtaking........
Then our very agile and competent guide suggested we take a longer, more challenging way down, which actually isn't even a trail, we had to find our own way.
But nevertheless, the kiasu in some of us wouldn't let us give up so we tagged along.
Most of our 'adventure walk down' was actually sitting down while some of the more experienced members examined possible routes and decide on the safest. And no one was particularly confident there was really a way to get down there like that.
But anyhow, even the safest route was quite nerve wrecking for newbies like me. We had to walk on narrow and uneven surfaces right beside cliffs. We weren't on harnesses so if we slipped and fell, that's basically the sorry climax -and ending- of any story. It was constantly about pulling ourselves up and lowering ourselves down some steep (and sometimes smooth) rock faces.
When we finally got down there, alive, albeit sustaining bruises here and there, it was like six hours later.
All the same, it was FUN!
We did nothing much for the rest of the evening except enjoy dinner and wine by the campfire. Unlike our Malaysia campfires where we usually sing song or exchange spook stories, we had casual chats about random things like how to say 'Cheers' in different languages.
By the end of the night, we were tired, exhausted and some of us, drunk-ish and retired for the night.
It isn't so simple, but I'll leave one episode to record under a later blog entry titled 'Men of Melbourne.'
Rest assured, I was sober and did not spend the night with any random guy.
The next day, we went rock climbing, which was my 1st time at rock climbing of any sort. (I took the liberty to post some pictures that I didn't take, since I've got a story to tell)
And then it was all solemn as we packed up and left the place.
Think the only people who were glad that it's over would be the organising people, my driver included. And that resulted in a very cheery ride home of delightful conversation minus the Melbourne city traffic jam. But sleeper at the back was back at it.........LOL.........
And oh, forgot to show you guys the toilet. At least we didn't have to dig a hole........
jiayeng
@
10:14 PM
