We headed off at about 11am on Friday for our drive to Horsham. Everything was packed and ready - we'd prepacked almost everything and just had to load the last few items and wrangle the kids into the car.
The drive was pretty uneventful - we had a brief stop in Keith for petrol, toilets and drinks and made it to Horsham by around 4pm
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| Stopping at Keith |
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| Typical Australian road trip scenery |
Adelaide to Horsham Pt1:
Adelaide to Horsham Pt2:
Adelaide to Horsham Pt3:
One of the things we discovered along the way was the Silo Art Trail. It is a part of a project to turn the rural grain silos into works of art - We saw the one in Coonalpyn, created by Guido van Helten in 2017. The artwork is based off of photographs he took of five local school children (full details
here).
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| Coonalpyn Painted silo |
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| Coonalpyn Painted silo |
While the drive and our arrival in Horsham was uneventful, the setting up of the camper was unfortunately not.. It turned out that the jockey wheel bracket had bent when we first moved it at home and we were not able to get the wheel attached to uncouple the trailer. In the end it was getting dark so we used a car jack and some wood instead of the wheel.
The next day we headed into Bunnings in Horsham and got a new camper wheel. The kids also bumped into a familiar character:
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| Easter Bunny at Bunnings |
Once we'd replaced the wheel we decided that the kids need a bit of time to unwind. Next to the caravan park was the Wimmera river on one side and the Horsham Botanic Gardens and playground on the other.
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| Our kitchen in the Taj |
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| The Taj |
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| At the Botanic Gardens Playground |
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| Bunyip sculpture by Kevin Gilders (2010) - he was commissioned to create a sculpture from a fallen sugar gum |
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| Queen of the Bunyip people |
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| On the tyre swing |
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| Alana didn't quite fit in the jeep |
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| But Tomas did |
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| She did manage to get in the HMAS Wave Rider |
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| Tom riding a sheepdog |
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| Alana riding a sheep |
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| Tomas uses his super-human strength to bend the bars |
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| Climbing |
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| A friendly(?) game of rugby |
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| Seesaw |
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| Driving the tractor |
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| All aboard the HMAS Sinks-a-lot |
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| Selfie |
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| Abandon Ship! |
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| That looks painful |
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| Botanic Gardens |
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| Posing |
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| Butterfly |
In the Botanic Gardens was the other part of the sugar gum that had formed the bunyip. Mr Thomas Brown, the curator of the gardens from 1891-1935 had planted the tree when his son was born (1895). The tree was unfortunately killed by borers and had to be removed, so the top part was used to make the bunyip and the base was used to make a carving of Mr Brown planting the tree:
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| Sculpture of Mr Brown |
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| Birds in the Botanic Gardens |
We then went for a walk along the Wimmera River:
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| Wimmera River |
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| Cockatoos |
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| Kids at the river |
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| Flood Level Indicators |
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| Flood Levels |
We then found a little adventure island and a cool slide:
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| The slide |
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| Looking down the Wimmera River |
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| A water station - in Alana's words "You have to let it run for 30seconds before you drink, else the water tastes like toenails" |
On the Sunday the kids woke up to a visit from the Easter bunny:
and then we went for a drive to explore the Grampians. The Grampians National Park is a mountain range known as Gariwerd by the local indigenous tribes.
Unfortunately this was a bad idea.. The Grampians are beautiful but we forgot that it was Easter Sunday, and the National Park was packed! The carpark and overflow carpark for the Mackenzie Falls were completed filled and we also couldn't stop at many of the scenic stops because they were no carparks. In the timelapse below you can see us getting caught in several parks and not being able to get out:
Eventually we found a park at the Boroka Lookout and managed to get some great photos of the amazing views:
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| View from Boroka Lookout |
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| Lake Bellfield |
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| Panoramic - Lake Lonsdale in top left distance, Lake Fyans in middle and Lake Bellfield on right |
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| Lake Fyans |
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| Lake Bellfield |
Next we stopped at the Silverband Falls. After a 1km hike we found that the falls had dried up, but the kids had fun making stone cairns:
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| Hiking to the falls |
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| Tree on the hike |
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| The Falls |
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| Tom's First Effort |
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| The Builders |
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| So much concentration |
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| Is his taller than mine? |
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| Cameron's Tower |
The powerful waterfall:
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| Some of the other cairns |
Next we stopped by the Brambuk Tourist Centre to see if they had a cloth badge to add to our collection. There was an unfortunate occurrence in the toilets there - they had used a red glue for the underlay for their flooring and when it got wet it leeched out red onto the floor. There was a sign explaining it, but there were a couple of really concerned people who raced to the reception desk to say "Someone has cut themselves badly in the toilets, there's blood everywhere." I bet they are regretting the decision to go with that flooring contractor..
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| The boys having a peaceful chat |
The center had a great 3D map that let us see where we had been in the park and helped to name the lakes we could see from the lookout.
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| The Map of the Grampians |
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| The red circle shows where the Boroka Lookout was - showing the lakes we saw |
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| We had a picnic lunch outside and plotted the trip back |
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| View outside the center |
On the way back to the campsite, we stopped by Dadswell (with plenty of Dad Jokes about "How's your dad? Dad's Well").
One of the famous/infamous(?) denizens of Dadswell is the Giant Koala. Australia has a love for random giant things - The big prawn, the big pineapple, big potato, big lobster (featuring later), big merino (sheep)... the list goes on -
This wikipedia article says there are about 150 'big' things in Australia.
The Giant Koala was built in 1989 and is 14m tall. It is made from a steel frame, bronze and concrete. It was sold in 2014 and is now under new ownership, who have repainted it. It was named 'Sam' in 2009 after the koala that was burnt in the wildlife shelter during the 2009 Black Saturday fires.
We visited in 2007 and were decidedly unimpressed, dubbing it the 'Giant Grey Turd'. A new dash of paint has made it look somewhat better, but it still felt pretty run down and it looks slightly constipated and in need of an ear waxing.
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| Giant Koala in 2019 |
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| Giant Koala in 2007 |
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| Giant Koala information sign |
After finishing up at the Giant Koala, we headed back to camp and started to pack, ready to leave the next day. We did have an extra night paid for, but we wanted to make sure we had enough time in Ballarat and Sovereign Hill, so we booked an extra night at Ballarat and headed off early on Monday morning.
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