I spent last weekend at the Grampians (officially the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia) with my mum’s side of the family which was a lot of fun. There were around 16 of us and we all stayed at the cosy Mt Zero Log Cabins.

On Sunday we made our way to Mt Stapylton to tackle the 2 hour walk. We were told the walk would be a little challenging but we had no idea it would be as involving as it was (I found out later on that travel guides graded the walk as either moderate or hard). There were many slippery rock surfaces and certain areas required some rock hopping and rock scrambling which would have been a little too dangerous for my youngest cousin and some of the older folks in the group. There weren’t any guard rails either so it wouldn’t have taken much for someone to accidentally slip and fall off a rock ledge.

In the end about half of us made it all the way to the summit. The views were quite spectacular. I especially liked the numerous rock pools scattered around the summit area which you can see in photos below.

Stoj, David, Bien, Huy, Nghia and myself headed up to Mt Buller this morning. We were all excited as it was the first trip of the season. The season only officially started last weekend but there has been very little to no snowfall. Luckily, enough snow fell in last couple of days (together with man made snow) for us to head up for some snowboarding.

Only the Bourke St run was open but that was enough to satisfy our snowboarding cravings especially since the conditions were so clear and beautiful. We couldn’t have hoped for a better day.

Here are some of the photos from today. The last two were taken at Mansfield where we had a pizza for dinner. Between the six of us we managed to down a total of 3 large and 3 medium pizzas!

While Xuan and I were at Emerald Lake we stumbled across these little red mushrooms. We were both fascinated by them and ended up spending quite some time taking photographs. They kind of reminded me of the mushroom houses in the 1980s cartoon The Smurfs.

The proper name for this species of mushroom or fungus to be correct is Amanita muscaria but they are apparently commonly known as fly agaric or fly Amanita. The mushrooms are poisonous and are said to have hallucinogenic effects if consumed. The photos below taken today show the mushrooms in various stages of growth.

Xuan and I headed to Emerald Lake Park today which is located in Melbourne’s outer east, about 50 km from the city. The park has two lakes, Lake Treganowan and Nobelious and offers barbecue facilities, paddle boats, walking tracks, fishing and the famous Puffing Billy heritage railway.

We spent the afternoon walking on the tracks and taking photos along the way. A lot of our time was spent taking photos of cute little red mushrooms we discovered scattered around the park. After some research I found out that they are called Amanita muscaria and are poisonous.

I just had a fantastic holiday in Phuket with a couple of mates, David and Nghia. First we stayed at the Thavorn Beach Hotel which was amazing but a little bit too far from the hustle and bustle of Patong beach (namely the Thaweewong and Bangla Road areas) so moved to the Patong Beach Hotel right in the heart of where the action was. Now we were in walking distance of all the restaurants, bars and shops which was heaps better.

Apart from the boozing and partying at night we also did a few tours. Most of our tours were in and around the Phang Nga area. There we road the ATVs (All terrain vehicles), went white water rafting, elephants treking, sea canoing and we even braved the bungy at World Bungy in Patong Beach. Now that was an experience I’ll never forget! Anyways, here are some of the photos from the trip.

Updated (21 June 2008)
Nghia has just compiled a YouTube video of the Thailand trip. It’s pretty funny.