Sunday it was early to rise for the 2.5 hour drive out to the Grampians. Australians are very serious about driving when you're tired... there a signs all along the freeway as well as power napping areas. The Grampians is a national park west of Melbourne and was listed on the National Heritage List for its outstanding natural beauty. We stopped at The Gap Vineyard for a quick wine tasting before heading to Wonderland to begin our hike. We walked up a beautiful mountainside which contained more steps within the rock than the trails I'm used to in the Rockies. There was a narrow alleyway called Silent Street to navigate and numerous rock faces to climb. The top had a fence all around a peak that juts out over the edge. I made it about halfway out before turning back; the wind was ridiculously strong and felt like it could throw me off balance. And my fear of heights didn't help.
After a quick lunch we stopped at Brambuk, an outdoor centre that offers extensive information on the area's aboriginal culture and history, and the natural environment. It was interesting to find out the aboriginal believed in six seasons and judged the changes in those seasons by the wildlife present and what they were hunting. We took a walk around Fyans Creek Loop and spotted a couple wild emu feeding on the side of the road. They are scary creatures when there is no fence. In the field close by was a large herd of wild kangaroo! One even had a joey in her pouch. The neatest part was they were feeding with three adult deer and a little spotted fawn.
We picked up some homemade fudge in Halls Gap and hit up three more wineries on the way home, Seppelt Great Western, Grampians Estate, and Best's Great Western. The area specializes in mostly whites; cab suav, chardonnay, and riesling, as well as shiraz. The shiraz is considered cool-climate which means that, because of the weather, the fruit doesn't ripen as fully so the taste is more subtle. Exhausted after a day of hiking, we ordered wood-fired pizza and called it a night.
Derek took the day off work today so we went out Port Melbourne and checked out some gourmet food shops... definitely my kind of shopping! We had some delicious thai curry and rice paper rolls for lunch and since it was windy and rainy, headed to the Melbourne Museum. There were some very cool exhibits! We started with the Mind exhibit which covered dreams, emotions, reactions, etc. It talked about how epilepsy used to be considered a mental disorder and how drugs affect neurotransmitters. Next was about the Body and included quite a few plastinated organs and cross sections of an actual human brain. The next exhibit was about the history of Melbourne and a famous horse named Phar Lap who won a lot of races during the 1930s depression and was considered a hero by the Australians. As much as I enjoyed learning about it, it was a little dry.
The Bunjilaka section held the history of the aboriginals and an awesome display called Menagerie that contained sculptures from aboriginal artists throughout Australia. Last but not least was the Science and Life Gallery that contained everything from dinosaur bones to insects to mammals. They had a room full of stuffed animals, and not the cute, fluffy kind. And a lot of spiders, but they were alive. It was a little creepy.
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