Organ Pipes National Park

Last Sunday - while recovering from our epic Spanish fiesta the night before - I suggested to Chris that we go out for a picnic lunch. The weather looked like it was going to hold up, and seeing as we both had plans to sit around and study for most of the day, getting out of the house for a couple of hours sounded like a good idea.

Thanks to google, I came across Organ Pipes National Park, which is just off the Calder Freeway on the edge of Melbourne. There is free parking, toilets and picnic tables, but no barbecues.

It was a fairly quick drive for us, and easy enough to get to. The park itself is relatively small, but it was beautiful. And so green! Spring is wonderful. I haven't been out of the city for awhile, so it was great to escape the noise and urban surroundings.

There is a circuit down in the valley of the park, from which you can view all the natural features. Signs proclaimed the full circuit would take an hour, but I'm fairly sure Chris and I did it under half an hour.

 The Organ Pipes (on the left) are a set of basalt columns created by the cooling and cracking of molten lava. Natural formations such as these always amaze me, and brings back into reality how young the human race really is. On the right is what was called the Rosette Rock (I think?).

Finally, the Tessellated Pavement. I'm assuming these were all basalt formations, but there was a lack of information around to answer my questions.

And then, it was back up to the carpark and picnic area. That was one damn steep hill, but we survived. 

We were starving after hiking back up the incline, so we demolished our lunch. I'd whipped up a foccaccia, some chickpea and sweet potato burgers and a salad that morning for our picnic. Pretty basic, but it served us well.

I can't wait for the weather to really start warming up, so we can have more day trips like this in the coming months. We also have plans to go on a few camping trips over the summer holidays too! Any suggestions for places to go?

Reanna.