Mount Arapiles
As we were unable to book a tour of the Aradale Asylum, and due to the fact we couldn’t go to the Grampians (Gariwerd) due to a tremendous bushfire, we headed the other direction and went to Mount Arapiles instead. We accidentally drove to the top, due to most of the parking spots being full, but near the top we found a nice shaded spot to leave the van.
We started down one path before deciding it was a bit difficult, and headed up to the other lookout. We found a sign that showed a fairly short loop, so we opted to set out on that, following the trail down past Pharos Rock, not realizing that this trail is actually quite difficult. We also failed to take into account that driving to the top of the mountain, hiking down, and then hiking back up is positively the worst way to see a mountain, but anyway.
Down past Pharos rock we passed a small Rock Wallaby, with Joey, hanging out just outside a tiny crevice. We passed it so close, without noticing, that I was the last one on the trail and spotted it completely by accident, saying “hey, did you guys see this?”. It didn’t seem overly bothered by us, but we definitely weren’t going to get off the trail to get any closer.
At the bottom of a fairly difficult descent, we wandered around, spooked another Kangaroo which equally spooked some members of our group, then started up another ascent to finish the loop - ironically ascending on the same path we decided was too difficult, but in for a penny in for a pound we needed to finish this thing and get back to the car. Saw a nice shingleback type lizard just hanging around on the path - Shaina actually thought at first that someone had taken a shit on the trail until it blinked at her.
Back to the car, exhausted, we had a lovely drive home then stopped off for ice cream, which should have happened in Halls Gap, but alas, they’re evacuated right now.
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