<< Climbing in the Southern Grampians

09/11/15 - The Volcano Trail

The road from Dunkeld to Port Fairy is part of the Volcano Trail. It runs between two volcanic sites, Mount Napier and Mount Eccles, and it passes over the great lava tubes running between those two sites. We stopped at the Byaduk Caves, part of Mount Napier Park, and took a look at the caves which are the collapsed openings of those lava tubes. The scenery was green and pastoral, with rolling hills, but those hills concealed hollow underground passages. It was magical in some ways. The park people had used the volcanic rocks littering the countryside to line the trails in the park. This made the park trails look like something from a fairy tale.

We returned to our rental car and had a panicky moment. The car started fine, but we couldn't move the automatic transmission from park. It was time to RTFM - read the manual. A brief perusal did not solve our problem, but it did mention that there was some kind of interlock between the automatic transmission and the brakes. That was our clue. One could not leave the park setting if the brake pedal wasn't depressed.

Our next stop was Mount Eccles and Surprise Lake. We were just too exhausted to walk around the lake, but we did clamber up to an overlook, and on the way down spotted a koala in a tree.


Volcanic rocks in a pasture

Volcanic rocks arranged into magical passages

Entry into the underworld

Another way of getting into the bowels of the earth

Satan's hideaway

Lake Surprise

A Koala near Lake Surprise

Keywords: australia