Ethan's Travels: Part 3

After a 5 hour drive on Friday 9th May we arrived into the Grampians National Park, after setting up camp at Halls Gap, I went to look around the gigantic area. I was surprised to see that they had trampolines and while I was jumping on the trampoline I saw two or three kangaroos jumping over to find food. Later they jumped over to a giant patch of grass where there were more eating the grass out in the open. I slowly went over to a smaller kangaroo and was able to pat it on the back without jumping away. As the sun rose down I went to collect firewood and created a fire. We sat down around the fire and after dinner we ate marshmallows.

The next day we got handed seeds so we could feed the cockatoos and one bit Chloe so hard she started bleeding. Soon we attracted more than twenty birds and they started biting each other. Later we went to climb the Pinnacle which was so high we could see the camp we were staying at. After the Pinnacles we went to the Grape Escape Festival which was being held not far from the Grampians National Park. The Grape Escape Festival is held every year to sell wine and food and when we got in they had a petting zoo. At the petting zoo they were letting people hold a fat wombat and when it got to my turn it fell asleep in my hands. After a long day of climbing, drinking/eating and feeding we went back and had dinner. After dinner we decided to stay another day, and YES had more marshmallows.

In the morning I was awoken to the sound of cockatoos squaking and mum made some friends in the park. Behind the cockatoos Chloe spotted a few red rosellas and we got dressed for horse riding. We drove to the Grampians Horse Riding Center and as we strapped on a helmet someone came out with carrots to feed the horses. After picking horses and putting on saddles we started to do the 2 and a half hour walk. At first the horse was going pretty fast and about halfway in between the walk my horse gave up and started walking what felt like 1 mile per hour. When the horse riding ended my legs felt like jelly. When the last day ended we got ready to drive to Port fairy.

The first night at Port Fairy we arrived late afternoon and as we were setting up a friend that mum made in the Grampians came over to talk to us and since he was a policeman he came in his cop car. He let us look in car and he said there were some gadgets he didn't even know how use. As he was leaving we organized to have dinner with them the following night. After breakfast we took our bikes off the back of caravan and rode into the town. When we got to the town Chloe asked if she could get a book from the book store and I found a dog whose ears were like a meter long. As we started riding we saw another dog and I went to pat it the owner said the dog was and dutch hound (sausage dog). After another round of patting and spotting dogs we went back for lunch. After lunch mum suggested that we should do the Yambuk sand dune slide. On the rules slide it said: *Don't use cardboard on slide
*Don't walk on the slide *And have fun! we broke every rule on the board accept the have fun one.

After eating fish and chips with David and Bernice( mum's friend that she made). And also feeding the seagulls. We went to sleep and got ready to drive down the Great Ocean Road. In the early morning we were woken up by a storm and it continued all the way down the great ocean road. Driving down the Great Ocean Road we stopped to see these amazing rock formations which were formed by the rough waters hitting the sides of what used to be apart of the ground that we were driving on. some of the rock formations that we saw were:the Grotto, London bridge and the 12 Apostles (which you may already know). After crossing the Great Ocean Road we found a place for lunch and got into a cabin because we left our caravan at Warrnambool since wed be coming back that way. At Apollo Bay, we played on their playground until dark, the next morning we drove back down to Warnambool and when mum was checking in from the caravan park she came back telling us that Oddball( a dog movie ) was filmed in Warnambool. After putting the caravan back on the car, we drove out of Warnambool and saw a island that had fairy penguins ( famous to Warnambool )but it wasn't the right time of year so we couldn't see them.

Next we headed to Ballarat for 2 nights and on the second day we saw Chloe's friend Chloe! Yes you heard me right, Chloe has a friend named Chloe and her brother and sister Oliver and Charlotte. And they are Ms Murray's grandchildren (yes the teacher at this school.) The next morning it was Mothers Day and we all spent it at Kryle Castle. Where we got to watch people dressed in armor( pretending to be knights), a cool comedy/theater show called everybody hates Shakespeare. After the theater we went into a old maze which the walls were made with bricks and after 5 minutes I got stuck so I climbed over the walls to get out. After a long day of fun, Justin ( Chloe's Dad ) suggested that we should do the archery. BUT this was different to normal archery. The arrow tips that you shoot are soft so if you shoot each other and the worst thing that could happen would be getting winded. So that's what we did.. for about 25/30 minutes we were shooting each other like crazy and the best part was when i shot my sister in the but! after a long day at Kryle Castle we left Chloe's friend Chloe and her family and we went back for the last night at Ballarat.

The next day we left Vic and passed the border to N.S.W.
We have traveled 7,498 K since Darwin.