Lerderderg State Park

Type: Hiking + camping
Location: Lerderderg State Park, O'Brien's Crosssing to Blackwood
Dates: 8 Jan - 10 Jan
Weather: Mid 20s, no rain
Crew: Me, my bros and my old man
Key Tracks Hit: We did a circuit loop at the northern part of the state park, near Blackwood. Some were hiking tracks, some were 4WD tracks.
Vehicles Used: On foot
Distance Travelled: ~25k in total. Nailed the whole circuit on the Saturday (20k) and then had only an hour or so walking on the second day, so we did another day walk down the south part near Lerderderg Gorge (2k+3k). Apparently they get peregrine falcon sitings there, but we didn't see any.
Campsites: Stayed the first night at O'Brien's Crossing by the Lerderderg "river", which was dried up, with not even a trickle. Pretty crap campsite and lots of people there. We stayed at Shaws Lake picnic ground on the second night. Much better campsite and way less crowded.
Fishing: Not that we were carrying fishing gear in our packs, but no water to be seen anyway.
Gear Purchased: None
Gear Review: None
Food: We had dinner the first night at Blackwood Pub. Pretty good place considering such a small country town. Would check it out again, but would also try the cafe there for dinner too. We got a coffee from there on the Sunday and the place was cool with a nice view. Camping food on Saturday night was ready made meals - Thai Green Chicken and Butter Chicken boiled up on our hiking stove. Good hiking food and easy.
Report: I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. I'd been wanting to check out Lerderderg for a while, as it's bloody close to Melbourne. The place seems more geared up for 4WDing, which didn't help us, given we were on foot. There weren't any cool peaks or views or anything that you want when you go on a long day's hike. We may have just hit up the wrong area though, and the southern part could be better. On the Friday night, we ate at Blackwood and then drove to O'Brien's Crossing, which was supposed to be our half way point. But given there was no water there we drove back into Blackwood on the Saturday morning, filled up our bottles and then started our hike from there. We didn't want to stay at the O'Brien's Crossing again, which was the half way point, so ended up pushing on and finishing the whole circuit in the day. Big day of hiking with full packs on, starting at 8am and finishing at 4.30, so we were wrecked when we got there. We chucked our packs on the ground and fell asleep for an hour in the sun cos we couldn't be bothered putting our tents up. Chilled for the rest of the night there, listening to tunes and playing cards. The next day was a quick walk back to Blackwood and then we drove down to Mackenzies Flat picnic ground, which had a good 1 hour round trip walk. Would be a lot cooler when then water is flowing.
Overall scenery and hike rating: 5/10. Wouldn't do it again at that time of year when so dry.
Wildlife rating: 8/10 - Saw heaps of wildlife, amazing given it's so close to Melbourne. Saw two echidnas (this was the highlight for me as I'd only seen one in the wild before), a koala, heaps of roos, wallabies, kookas / other birdlife and a couple of wedge tail eagles. Also saw a fox in our campsite while we were playing cards. The thing wasn't scared of us at all, just ran straight through our site, only metres away from us. We chased it off when it was going near our packs, but it came back 3 times! Wish I had Toon's .22!

Robe, Beachport, Grampians

Type: 4wd'ing + hiking + camping
Location: Beachport, Robe, Grampians
Dates: 26th-31st December
Weather: 25 at Robe, 38 at Grampians
Crew: VB family
Key Tracks Hit: Robe to Beachport via Beach
Vehicles Used: '05 Paj
Distance Travelled: 1450 kms
Campsites: 3 Mile Bend # 6 @ Beachport, Colhurst House B&B @ Mt Gambier, Buandik Campground #1 @ Grampians
Fishing: Unfortunately no time :(. Great surf spots between Robe and Beachport to throw a line. Was hoping to go after some mulloway. Beachport pier at 750 meters was also producing mullet and whiting. Bait used mainly pipi.
Gear Purchased: Primus High Output two burner stove. Adventure Kings Awning 2.5m x2.5m.
Gear Review: Primus two burner stove worked a treat! Super fast to boil water for multiple cups of coffee! Make sure you turn it down when cooking food, it heats up a pan quick, and just continues to heat!! Awning was also very handy to pitch beside the tent as a home base. Look forward to using it often.
Food: A highlight. Ate like kings the first few nights. Bangers & Mash w Sauerkraut, Steak Sandwiches, Tomato based bacon pasta, pancakes, bacon and egg English muffins, fish and chips (at towns!)
Report: 7.5/10
Rating: Weather was annoying. Preferably it was the other way around. Grampians was too hot for the bush, Robe was not hot enough for the beach. Outside of this, Robe and Grampians remain some beautiful parts of Australia that need to be explored.

Robe is a great beach town, as is Beachport. The drive on the beach was unreal! Water was turquoise blue and was begging to be fished! Got stuck in the sand on three separate occasions! Sand driving was much harder than i thought, and completely different to mud, rocks, hill climbs etc. Put tires down to 20 psi, then down to 16. Should have gone down even further, as some of the soft parts of sand along the beach was SOFT. The dune driving was easy enough and enjoyable. Couldn't make it one one particular dune, made 3/4 of the way, then reversed down and tried an easier dune to get back on the track.

One night at Mt Gambier to freshen up at Colhurst House was very nice. Lovely Pub meal was horrible. Beer was great.

Grampians was spectacular. Emus, wallabies, roos, rock formations, scenery, waterfalls etc. Unfortunately it was a little too hot, and no river by the campsite to chill. Only spent 1 night at Grampians, was planning on spending 3, but the heat made it important to get kids in the car and roll home for NY celebrations.

10/10 would have been because of better weather, some fishing, some proper offroading in grampains, and NYs in grampians. Next time. Maybe when kids are older!