SR and I landed back in Melbourne, ridiculously excited to move into our new home: a hi-top campervan. What luxury, to be able to unpack things and have access to whatever we want, whenever we want for the next month solid!
Unable to fathom trying to park this sucker in Melbourne, we just headed straight out of town, through Daylesford (I failed to take a picture, sorry), and on to Grampians National Park in western Victoria. This area is known for its beautiful mountainous scenery and aboriginal rock art. Unfortunately, it started raining when we were in Daylesford, and didn't stop for the next two days of our progress west. So when, in the park, we climbed to the top of Mt. Williams, this was the (non)view (from under my umbrella):
But walking back down, with the clouds drifting over the surrounding peaks, it was actually very pretty, and the walk in the cool, crisp air felt great (not all that different from Tasmania, actually!).
And the rain didn't ruin the opportunity to see the rock art. We drove (a detour took us on this road of a color unlike any I've seen before)...
...east of the park boundary to the "Bunjil Shelter," an eerily beautiful area that had recently been affected by a bush fire...
...and at the base of an absolutely enormous (glacial erratic, I'm assuming) boulder, found this aboriginal depiction of Bunjil ("The Creator") and his two dingo helpers.
From there, we beat it west toward the border of South Australia, pausing only for gas station showers and so that SR could pose with this giant koala. (He read somewhere that road trips in Oz involve giant-everything tourist spots, so if that's to be believed, this should be just the first in a series.)
Crossing into South Australia (our fifth of the eight Australian states--we will hit them all in this trip!) we drove down toward Adelaide via the Barossa Wine Valley, where some of the world's best reds are produced.
From here, we skirt Adelaide (we'll be back in a future chapter of the trip) and start the long haul through a lot of nothingness into Western Australia. Full report on that coming soon!
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