A Long - Weekend Break

A quick post put up via my mobile phone. (photos from my camera)

Deb and I have again nipped away for a quick break.

This photo gives a clue as to where we are.

You might recognise the colourful rock-face on that mountain in the distance.

It is the Taipan Wall in the Grampians

Back in September I posted about a climb I made up one end of this mountain (following yellow arrows)

I haven't done anything that energetic yet because we arrived quite late.

So only a drive to the west and a half hour walk to get photos of this.

More piccies in a few days!

Following Yellow Arrows Further

I finished my last post on the verge of climbing up through a stone slot on my way up Hollow Mountain. Anyway, with a squeeze and a lot of scrabbling I made it up through the slot

At the top of the slot I climbed around the base of a tree and out onto a wide sloping shelf of rock; a bit more climbing (easy compared to further down) and I reached the base of this beautiful formation. You can see one of our little yellow arrows in this piccie.

This piccie shows where this formation is in relation to the whole mountain, I have circled it on the original piccie from last post.

The dark shadow at the bottom of the vertical face is a cave which is part of the reason this is called Hollow Mountain.

I sat inside to give you a view from inside.Inside the cave if you turn around you discover that it goes right through the mountain.A detail shot of the stone at the cave mouth, I am absolutely enamored with the colours in this landscape

Leaving the cave a short walk takes you around the back of the massive block of stone the cave sits in. You can squeeze through a chasm and catch a glimpse of the sheer cliffs at the back of the mountain.By now I was fairly tired and to my frustration I had finished all the water I had brought with me (a litre) so I was pretty thirsty. But I hadn’t quite reached the top.

So reversing my way back along the chasm I followed the rock shelf around as it climbed toward the rear of the mountain. I paused to take a shot of the country I had climbed up from. Another low cave extends deep into the mountain here.

Finally I reached the top and looked down into the country behind the Hollow Mountain.

This magnificent formation is called the Taipan WallAll I can say is it was amazing in the late afternoon light and made the climb well worth the effort.You can see my shadow in both these piccies, just in front was a sheer cliff maybe 500 feet straight down. I wasn’t going any closer to that edge!

My climb finished I turned to make my way back down.

As I got back to the top of the front rock face I ran into the two young men I had met at the bottom. They had just finished climbing up “the hard way”.

We had a brief chat and they began to make their way down this time taking the easy route.

I took a shot of them climbing into the top of the slot I had climbed on the way up (and had to follow them down). As you can see it was a squeeze for this fat, unfit, middle aged Aussie boy!