camping trip

[ilbonito]

I just came back from a camping trip to the "Grampians", (now also known by their Aboriginal name "Gariwerd"), a small range of mini-mountains about two hours North of where I live. The hills and ridges have been eroded into sharp, angular teeth and their flanks are covered with bushland meadows and forests.

In the morning, the misty meadows were full of wild kangaroos and emus.







This is the Brambruk Aboriginal Cultural Centre, designed to celebrate the distinctive heritage of the two Aboriginal peoples who lived in the area until they were evicted to live in Christian missions (although their descendants have returned). The award-winning building is designed to melt into the mountainous backdrop. The people who lived here farmed eels in lakes and wore long, possum-skin cloaks - both unique aspects in Aboriginal cultures -and
some of their cave paintings in the area date back 20,000 years.




A sign in German for a hiker lodge. I guess they get lots of German visitors.

[Jazz]

Beautiful, ilbonito. The misty meadow sequence is still and magical, especially the kangaroos. Were you close by, yet they were comfortable with your presence, or were you at a distance?

The roofs of the cultural centre are a great design, the one on the right…it’s the color and fluid feeling that I like (maybe it was the early morning sun hitting that roof) Did you go inside?

[Deleted]

Perfectly taken pictures, ilbonito. The mist and clouds give them that special quality.

some of their cave paintings in the area date back 20,000 years.


Where you able to get any photos of these paintings at all?

[ilbonito]

The kangaroos and emus come very close. These photos were all taken with a little pocket camera, no special lenses. The area around the lodges is all national parks and the wildlife is used to people and doesn't see it as a threat. NO doubt some people feed the animals (which is of course forbidden) providing a further incentive.




Alas, we didn't even see the rock paintings. I was taking a school trip and the hike to the caves with the artwork (which is roughly contemporary with the famous paintings at Lascaux in France) was considered too hard and timeconsuming. We had to take the more boring (though still very pretty) "easy walk".

We did of course, go into the cultural centre for a whirlwind trip. It focused heavily on kid-friendly crowd pleasers like throwing boomerangs, and telling Creation myths in its theatrette with animatronic emus. There was, conspicuously, hardly any mention of the painful history of what happened to these people when Europeans arrived.

[happytraveller]

Ha ! I recognised it as the Grampians at first glance. Great pictures ! One of the nicest parts of Australia I reckon.

[happytraveller]

Did you, by any chance, stay at the big 4 campground ? Those photos of the roos in the grass look extremely similar to the ones I took 11 years ago, from the edge of the campground. (Halls Gap I think it was)

[ilbonito]

Yeah its in Halls Gap But we stayed at a place called Norval. There is a whole little cluster of motels and campgrounds along that little road to the cultural centre though, perhaps yours was a round there too?

[bixaorellana]

What a beautiful area! The roof of the cultural center really did fool me at first glance. It does indeed melt into the background, as you say.

May 19, 2010 10:47:07 GMT ilbonito said:

designed to celebrate the distinctive heritage of the two Aboriginal peoples who lived in the area

Did the two groups live there concurrently? Are any of the returned descendants able to live on the grounds of the cultural center, or are they forced to the periphery?

I hope that one day you'll get to return to see the cave paintings. I suppose that, like Lascaux, one day they'll be closed off to the general public in order to preserve them.

[lola]

You do get around , ilbonito.

[ilbonito]

Haha, well this is my local "neighbourhod". And Bixa, the community centre employs local Koori people (Koori being a preferred term for Aboriginal people from the Southeastern part of Australia) but I think, frankly, it could do a better job of training them. Their presentation was a bit, unpolished. You got the impression they wer just rushing people in and out as quickly as possible.

[lagatta]

This is so beautiful and I'm glad I clicked on it. I hate camping, but your photos have nothing to do with sore backs and leaky tents at all.

[bixaorellana]

It's a shame in more than one way that the guides are not better trained. For one thing, the visitors are there because they want to know more and they should be given good information. For another, getting good and moving up in a job like that could open job opportunities elsewhere for an individual.

Ilbonito, the two misty meadow photos with no kangaroos in them are sort of framed with a tree on either side of the picture. The tree on the left is obviously a eucalyptus, but what is that beauty with the fat trunk and the twisty limbs, please?

[ilbonito]

Its another kind of eucalypt. There are heaps of different kinds...

[happytraveller]

May 19, 2010 13:41:43 GMT ilbonito said:

Yeah its in Halls Gap But we stayed at a place called Norval. There is a whole little cluster of motels and campgrounds along that little road to the cultural centre though, perhaps yours was a round there too?

As far as I remember it was just outside of town, only a couple of kms away. I also remember one morning I looked over to the fields and I thought that there was just something weird about one of the roos that were grazing there. At a closer look I realised it was a deer in the middle of all the roos. It looked really weird.

[Deleted]

Delightful area, ilbonito. I am thinking that it is getting to be late autumn, so does it start getting "uncomfortable" for camping type activities as the season progresses?

I do understand that Australian winters cannot be compared to Scandinavian winters, but I have noticed that Australians get cold easily. What temperature is "cold" for you?

[ilbonito]

Durign the days when we were hiking the weather was absolutely perfect - as you can see in the pictures- but the nights were freezing!!!!! Anything under 15 degrees is cold for me, and I think at night it must have been about 5 degrees.