After another lazy morning (well we are on holiday, although it’s not like we bounce out of bed at the crack of dawn at home – did that for 40 years, not doing it now), we had an early lunch and set out for Heathcote, only about half an hour away.  We skirted the northern end of Lake Eppalock, and discovered that it has a spillway – something I’ve never realised.  We drove over the wall a couple of times, just for the sake of it.  The water level is higher than the time we paddled a small kayak across it, to earn 30 points in one of our earliest rogaines.

We’ve been to Heathcote before, as my paternal family hailed from here, but we only looked at the town and the cemetery on that trip.  This time we explored further afield and higher up.  Our first walk was supposed to be a loop of 2.6 km, and an hour.  “Easy” we thought.  It turned out to be closer to 5 km, and took almost 2 hours – mostly because it was a rough narrow track covered in very loose rocks, which my vestibular hated; when the ground is too three-dimensional, it has trouble processing all that visual information.  Flat smooth tracks are fine, but this was the opposite, and I had to make my way painfully slowly.  It was hot, and we encountered the first mozzies and flies of summer.

The walk starts from the swing bridge, and heads uphill to the Powder Magazine, an intact, sturdy stone building. From there it climbs up to the Devils Cave, a rock formation that no self respecting course setter would ignore as a control location, although barely a cave.  From there, the track gets flatter but narrower and rougher, as it traverses the hillside.  Eventually it meets a forest road, which was much easier going.  This took us to our objective – the Viewing Rock.  The track made its way downhill for the last kilometre, and I tried to keep myself upright.  It was a relief to reach the bottom.

Click on each gallery to see full size photos

The second walk was thankfully much gentler, as we meandered around the Pink Cliffs.  We’ve seen these sorts of erosion formations many times when orienteering, but never seen them this colour.  They really are pink – and white, orange, yellow and ochre. They only cover a very small area, but there are a million places to put a control!  Unfortunately you are meant to stay behind the viewing fences.  The tracks are covered in talc-like powder of different hues. The shapes and textures are endlessly fascinating.

For some reason, the colours brought ice cream to mind, so it was handy that the local supermarket was selling some.  Ian indulged in fruit sorbet, while I had something chocolatey topped with something raspberry-ish.  Delicious and reviving!

The kangaroos are back for their evening nibble on what passes for lawn.  The females have joeys in their pouches – you can see a languid foot poking out here and there. The male stands very tall as he keeps an eye out.  After deciding that me and my camera were not a food source, they lost interest in the humans.

As usual, we’ve just settled in, and it’s time to move on.