Big Steps Little Legs

 Stawell - The Grampians - ( 1 Video)

Today we leave the great town of Ballarat and head north west to make our way to a doctors appointment for Mia in Adelaide. The goal is to reach Stawell. A country town where my father spent some of his youth and the footpath to the great Grampian Mountain ranges.

Me at Stawell

One stop at a roadside cut off for some lunch and stretch the legs. i made popcorn the old fashioned way to show the girls and for them to eat on the way. We arrive in the afternoon at "Stawell's Grampians gateway caravan park, set up and head straight to one of the terrific waterfalls (Mackenzie Falls)

Swans at Stawell

Girls feeding The swans

Streets Of Stawell

Main Street Stawell

Post Office

Church Detail

Musical chimes come from the town hall Clock

Main Street Shops

Original Shops kept in perfect condition

Original Fire Station

Court House

Mackenzie Falls

Rock face of the Grampians

These ranges are unbelievable to look at. Pure rock and launching straight up into the sky out of a very flat country side. Up the hill we go toward the falls lookout. When we arrive i quickly went in to chat with the information centre to get our bearings. The guy there tells me that the falls is a 1.2 kilometer walk to the base of the falls. Oh No! the poor girls. off we go again. This time it was an extremely steep walk "all the way down". But what an impressive waterfall. We took some great family photos here with the running falls as a backdrop. these will be printed for our home for sure.

   Then we knew we had to do it.. Walk back up again. Lily was our biggest challenge but she took to it very well. I had to shoot some video of them struggling and for a 3 & 4 year old they made Mum & dad very proud. Our little princess Mia was typically a princess all the way. Goofing off and struggling to keep up.

VIDEO - Big Steps Little Legs

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Me & Heather at Mackenzie Falls

At The bottom of the Falls

Caught in action

   
We will all sleep very well tonight as our muscles are screaming. well mine are anyway. Because the roads are flat and somewhat boring we should make some distance tomorrow toward adelaide.

A Walk Back In Time - Sovereign Hill

 Sovereign Hill was a walk back in time to the early days of the gold rush. Set up as it was then when GOLD fever was in everyone's blood. 

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What a truly fantastic place to walk around. All of the people that work here do so voluntarily and make it such an authentic place to be. Live street fighting and squabbles were cool to see. there is a running stream through the middle of the town and you can pick up a shovel and pan and dig til your hearts content. They place gold in the river for you to see some colour in your pan but only if you know how. We showed the girls how to dig and pan and before long Bingo. GOLD! fever had struck. Lily loved panning and found some herself. We bought a little glass vile to hold our riches and we will take it home with us. We watched candle making, Went underground into mine (great show) and even went ten pin bowling like the old days. Timber ball and very old set up but just like it was in them days. A truly magic part of our family holiday. As we left we spent about half our in an amazing gold museum with the Huge nuggets on display that had been found in the area. Back to the van for me to rest up on a massive days travels and events.

Goldfields Big 4 Caravan Park

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Disaster Strikes!

 Each night i usually try to download any of the days pictures and fill in my travel diary. This can be quite hard if the day is long and the body is tired. With the last post showing all of the great shots of the 12 Apostle area i had mentioned that we drove from the coast and headed inland toward Ballarat. This drive took us about 4 hours or so, stopping a few times along the way. That night (at Ballarat) I sat with the laptop and decided to move the images across from my memory cards to the computer. At the time i was using a card reader device that had been sitting in my drawer at home and wasn't used very much. It had been fine up til now. One of the pins inside the device had a bend in it and when i went to place my memory card inside it, it shorted out the card and POW! deleted all of the images from that day. Everything!

    I spent 3 more hours and a good part of the next day trying to see if i could recover them. No good!
I made the decision that the only way to recover them was to go back to the coast and re-shoot the images. I Woke up early the following morning (5am) and off i went, leaving the girls to sleep in and take a day off without me.

Perfect roadkill shot only moments after this fox had been hit. (6.15am)

 I Reached the Apostles at 9.15am and rode my bike along all of the previous tracks to cover the ground more quickly. I re-walked the beach shots and even snuck in some extras that i missed on the first walk.

    Back in the car with some nibbles for the trip and back to Ballarat.

Buggered of course i arrived back to the girls at 12.45pm and we headed for Sovereign hill as planned days before.

I was born in Camperdown Sydney. Thought this was worthy

Plenty of these along the way

The zig zag hillsides are everywhere

Elephant mountain

The grain fields on the way to Ballarat

 A very Tiring day indeed with a visit to Sovereign Hill still to come on top of my 6-7 hours in the car.

The Great Apostle Disaster

 A Photographic disaster strikes

Today we left the van at Princetown Reserve and headed up to the well known 12 apostles for some photo time. We stopped first at a roadside set of steps and there was a nice steep set of steps all the way to the bottom beach which you can walk along and see 2 of the apostles first hand up close and personal. So of course it had to be done.

My Workout for the day!

Having a 3 & 4 year old is the only problem on these big walks. you just have to hope they are in a good frame of mind and ready to go. The beach walk was easily 1\2 a kilometer in the sand but you cannot go to see them and not do it. Most tourists go down the steps and go no further, missing the real cool pictures. The cuttlefish bones were entertaining enough for the girls to stick with us and Heather had some fun with them while i could snap some decent shots. Because we knew the day was going to be a long one I decided to carry them both back up the stairs "together" to save some time and energy. This endeavour i felt that night when we were showered and back at rest.

The girls and I

Difficult exposures with the sun on the Apostle and me in the shade

The seabed used to be at the top of these structures.

On to the Apostle kiosk and viewing area to see the best view of all. The kids were hungry and tired so Heather decided to sit at the kiosk and let me go on to see and photograph the rest of the sights. I spent about 45 minutes running up and down the ramps photographing all the angles i could. When i arrived back at the kiosk i told Heather that the view was not to be missed and whether the kids liked it or not she had to witness the view and these amazing structures, off we went again. A sight not to be missed.

The start of a new apostle

Curious onlookers

 Further up the coast a little where many great inlets with crashing waves and so we chose a couple more and walked all the tracks that led to them.

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 We then jumped in the car headed back to the Princetown Reserve to pack up and thought we would try to get as close to Ballarat as possible and after about 2 hours or more we stopped for lunch at a place called Lismore. A quick picture at the Lismore Bakery for my Brothers sake (he lives in Lismore NSW).

Because the roads were not steep and winding we made excellent time and thought "bugga it" lets go to Ballarat anyway. We arrived in the afternoon and checked into the best caravan park to date. The Gold fields Big 4 caravan park, heated floors in the bathrooms and heaps for the kids to do. Neat and tidy with a close drive to the town centre. Checked in for 3 days with the main attraction for us being Sovereign Hill. Whew what a day!

Disaster strikes! (read the next post to hear about it)