Road Trip Day 2 - Roo Road Kill!

After waking up in the passenger seat of the car with ear plugs in and feeling a little tired we set off on our way again, it was about 8 in the morning and the sun was just starting to heat up. Thankfully we had some decent air conditioning in the car we would have melted if we hadn't.

First stop off on our journey was an impressive light house and world war two radar. The light house looked amazing against the blue sky. The only problem here was the number of flies buzzing around your head, I even managed to catch one on my face as I posed for a photo.

 

We stopped off on the coast to see the 12 Apostles. These large rocks in the ocean were formed by the erosion of the original coastline over many years by the waves of the sea. These looked amazing from the look out high up on the coast.

Apparently the rock erodes by 2cm every year.

After visiting a few small towns along the way, we headed away from the coast and towards the Grampians National Park. The scenery started to alter, from amazing coastal views to bush forest and huge mountains. After passing many kangaroo signs we decided to keep an eye out in the bush for any sight of them. As well as nearly running two over (again) we spotted one just off the road hiding in the long grass but staring straight towards us. I wound down the window a took various mugs shots of the roo... who I later named "Jeffery".
 
Driving through the Grampians National Park was amazing, huge mountains, kangaroos, thick bush forest and some road kill. We spotted a few crows furiously pecking away at something by the side of the road, Dougie slowed down and reversed to check out what it was. I wound down the window like a paparazzi to take a quick snap of the Kangaroo that looked like it'd been run over several times. Suddenly a vile stench of rotting roo wafted into the vehicle, at first I thought it may have been Dougie (again!). I soon realised that it was in fact the rotting roo carcass, I shouted at Dougie to put his foot down as I began to feel sick. Unfortunately in my haste, as a natural reflex type response I wound up the window trapping the sickening stench in the vehicle. Two seconds later we both wound our windows down gasping for the fresh air as we both made an "errrrrrrrrrrrr" noise in synchronisation.

With the road kill behind us we hit Halls Gap where there were various types of accommodation available. You could camp, stay in a hotel or a guest house, we opted for "Ned's Guest House" which was great.

The guest house was cheap, clean and welcoming. It would have been great to have had more time to spend in this area, it truly was spectacular.
Roaming around the area were a number of large Kangaroos and in the trees sat Cockatoos whilst towering above the tree tops were the immense Grampians mountains.

Myself and Dougie found the local restaurant (which was very expensive), unfortunately we were too late in the day and all they could offer us was take out. So we went for it and took it back to the guest house where we sat outside eating and chatting.

 

**edit - I have recently learned that the Kangaroo in the bush is actually a SwampWallaby also known as a black Wallaby.