Rob and Linda Climb Mount Difficult, the Grampians, Victoria, Australia
Although we’d been in the Grampians for a couple of days already, and camped for two nights, and had seen some breathtaking sights at the various ’scenic lookouts’ dotted around the national park, we felt that many of these were a bit easy to access. The paths too simple. All readily accessible by car (or, as in the case of Mount William, an easy walk from a car park).
This made the scenic lookouts slightly less exhilarating - due to the ease with which one can access them, as well as the fact that they are pretty busy places too. Imagine our delight, then, when we found a walk that went from our ‘Troopers Rest’ Grampians camp site that went right to the top of Mount Difficult.
As we have mentioned, most of the signs and places in Australia are extremely aptly named (e.g. The Cheapest Cars in Town; Rough Surface Ahead etc) so to climb ‘Mt Difficult’ we should have realised that it would not be easy… We were in no doubt, though, when Linda met a guy who’d climbed it the day before in our camp. He was a Lancastrian (not his fault) and explained how it was not the moderate 3 and a half hour walk that the guide book stated and was in fact a strength-sapping five and a half hour marathon, for which he had only taken 1 litre of water. His mistake. Apparently he had drunk his entire water for the trip in one hour, and that was an overcast day!
We stocked up about 5 litres of water, a spare jacket each, some sandwiches, apples, bananas and cereal bars (plus some emergency Mars Bars) for lunch and took a torch in case of emergency after this chat… and set off.
Initially the walk is not too bad at all, being flat for the first 15 minutes or so. We found Illwinda Cave, which is a massive rock with a hole in the middle, which Rob climbed inside (see photo above) before we continued along the path.
It was much hotter than the past few days. Over 34 degrees. We took a number of breaks to take on water and get our breath back as the path climbed relentlessly upwards.
The path is fairly difficult to see in spots, but there are many orange arrows sprayed onto the rocks to show where you should be going! Pretty soon, however, we got quite high up and found ourselves on a fairly precarious cliff and also went through some interesting rocky outcrops.
The final climb seemed to go on forever and both of us actually considered giving up, and would have done were it not for the fact we had come so far.
After our final water break we were walking without much chat and feeling pretty tired when Linda nearly walked through a spiders web which contained a rather big spider: the adrenaline that produced spurred us to the summit.
We stopped for lunch on a high peak then rediscovered the path to the very top. The views from the top of mount Difficult are outstanding and can only really be experienced properly in person - the photos are a poor substitute in my opinion! Mount Difficult is tough to climb, but well worth the trouble…
THAT’S WHAT I CALL A SPIDER, MAN!
A very nice report of this great walk!
We found the final 700m climb from the camp site to the ‘Trig Point’ at the top rather boring and we too thought it was going on forever and ever. But, like Rob and Linda we decided that “we have come this far…”, and the views from the top are magnificent indeed.
My daughter and I (60-year old mother) made it to the top and back in just under 5 hours. It was a cool and overcast day (May) and ideal for this walk. I would not want to attempt this walk in hot weather though!
If walking on a hot day take PLENTY of water! Up to 3 litres per person.
The guide book we had said ‘Hard walk’, but it is not that hard really if one allows more than the suggested 4 hours return.
The climb up took us 2 3/4 hours and the walk down 2 hours.
Scrambling over the rocks was quite fun, in some places a little of a challenge, but not impossible. Coming back there was one place where we wondered how we managed to get to the other side on the way up and we had the same ‘problem’ on the way down.
I took a torch along, just ‘in case’, because we started out late, and at this time of the year it gets dark earlier.
But:
TO ATTEMPT OR FINISH THIS WALK WHEN IT IS DARK WOULD BE OUTRIGHT FOOLISH, AND VERY DANGEROUS.
I would not want to do this walk in wet weather.
This is a fairly isolated area and I would suggest to let somebody know where you are and what time you are expected to be back.
Thanks for your comment - we went up at the start of February on a hot day - which is probably why it was so tiring for us! You were right to take plenty of water, its a pretty tough walk.
Glad you enjoyed our post.