Plans to get away over the Christmas/New Year break were thwarted by widespread bush fires in the south-east of Australia. We pulled the pin on a visit to the Budj Bim National Park on the morning of our planned departure. A new window of opportunity to get away finally opened up over the 5th-8th March, coinciding with the Labour Day holiday weekend in Victoria.
The night before our departure the rains began. With much of the country in drought it was out of character to receive flooding rains, with the average total for the month of March falling in a 12-hour period. Unperturbed, we set off with light rain still falling and the hope that, once clear of the hills to the north-west of Melbourne, the skies might clear. The showers persisted through to Ballarat where we donned our spray tops for the short walk to a nearby café for lunch.
Our journey continued for a short distance beyond Ballarat before we turned off the Western Highway and joined the Sunraysia Highway, driving up through Avoca to our final destination, Kara Kara National Park. We wandered the campgrounds, eventually finding our preferred campsite for the next few days. The campgrounds were already home to two other campers, but we expected others to arrive as the long weekend approached. There were approximately 20 campsites, each with their own fireplace and some with a table and seats.
We settled in to our campsite amongst the trees before heading off for a lap of a dry lake, located upstream from the dam that supplies water to the small township of Stuart Mill. The walking path we followed passed through a stand of mature gum trees that were popular with a large flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos. The call of these birds is never melodious, and when en masse the decibels rise to a deafening level. It seemed an early morning wake up call was most likely.
We lost the path for a while, then found what looked like a track running parallel to an old slab fence, possibly erected when the squatters first passed through claiming the land for themselves. Kangaroos stirred in the grasses growing on the middle of the dry lake as we scrambled around a fallen tree that was blocking our way. It was quite noticeable that it had been some time since water had flowed over the spillway. We clambered down from the dam wall and followed the shoreline of the lake on the return to our campsite.
