Golton Gorge

The Pirates of the Grampians strike again. TC, Netti and Jack joined us on today’s pirate adventure. We headed out in search of gold in the Golton Gorge. The temp was supposed to climb over 35° but according to TC and Sean it was an easy trek so we’d be right. Netti and I had our doubts. We found out that it only rated the highest rank of hard on the hiking guide.

Off we go with Aiden and Jack leading the way. The first 400 m of the track was steep with lots of loose rocks. The original pirates must have had some difficulty lugging up the treasure chest since we found a few gold coins along the way. After a bit of an arduous climb we made it to the top for some 'specky’ (spectacular: in Canadian) views.

Jack took the helm of the GPS to lead us to a geocache and then we rounded the top of the bend for the return ‘easy’ loop down the gorge. On a bit of the relatively flat track, Aiden decides to do a skip-hop-run combo that goes a bit off the rails and ended up scraping his knee. He starts to pick himself up and dust himself off when he realizes that his ‘blood is coming out’. Blood curdling screams resound through the valley as if he was looking at the bloody stump of a missing limb. Some patchwork first aid with a couple of band-aids seem to do the trick but when they fail to stick shortly down the track, the wailing begins again with increased intensity. Fortunately Netti has some first aid supplies and employs some nursing skill to the situation. Although the emotional scarring may be deep the physical injury has, as Grandpa Ray would say, ‘healed up and haired over’. After packing Aiden down a most interesting, beautiful and rugged route, we enjoyed a warm lunch crouched under a meager bit of shade at the picnic area.

Another adventure burned into the memories of the intrepid explorers.

After lunch we were more than glad to climb into an air-conditioned vehicle and head to Vicki and Al’s so Tony could take some measurements of Whatzit in hopes to identify him. After studying the measurements and a hair sample to test, it looks like Whatzit may be a western brush wallaby or just a unique swamp wallaby.

We ended a wonderful day by returning home, having evening tea and sharing a few drinks together.