Mt Buller weekend

Sunset near Yarra Glen (taken from moving car)

We stopped at a fish n chip shop in Yarra Glen for dinner. The burgers were delicious...I'd go so far as to say mine was better than a Grill'd burger. It's a bit far to go for our regular Friday night burger though. 

Rainy afternoon - the view from the lodge we stayed at 

It rained in the afternoon both days, with thunder and lightning on Saturday. We could see the forks of lightning while sitting in the living area of the lodge.

 Trees killed by bushfire 

We set out to walk from the Mt Buller to the peak of Mount Stirling on Saturday, but it was hard going (for me anyway). The track was rocky and difficult to walk on and steep in parts, and it turned out to be a longer trek than we expected. I pulled the pin when faced with a long, steep incline that I just didn't have the legs for. (You know that mental note I made after walking up Mr Oberon in January about going to the gym more often? I have been exactly twice since. Still, considering I've had so little energy lately, I was pleased I managed as well as I did.)

 Very tall/long fallen tree (hard to see the scale here) on the walk to Mt Stirling

 Eye of the tree

 Dead trees, purple undergrowth

 The beautiful snowgum

 A female mountain katydid...

We spotted this large insect (body about 3cm long) on the track on the way back home. It wasn't keen on posing for photos and kept turning around to try to get away when we stuck our cameras in its face. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see it has a faux face on its back end. Didn't scare us!

Bumface 

I found out what kind of creature it is by coincidence. Very early on we'd seen another unusual large insect on the path with vivid blue and red stripes on its abdomen, which it was pointing at us, obviously agitated. I googled 'insect red blue abdomen' and the first picture I saw was of the insect above! Turns out the stripey one is the male mountain katydid and the brown one is the female.   

 Rocky whirlpool

 Raven and dead trees

 Raven and lichen

The view from near our lodge

 Mailboxes beside the road between Mt Buller and Mansfield

 Another beautiful tree

Storm clouds and dry grass