Several years ago a friend packed a batch of premixed cosmopolitans on his first multiday hike. It took until the first night to realise that the warm, syrupy liquid wasn’t quite as refreshing as he’d hoped in the tropical heat of north Queensland, but if he’d been on the Grampians Peaks Trail (GPT) in western Victoria, it might have been a different story.
The second night of the brand new 13-day trail is spent at a campsite named Gar, which hugs the lip of an escarpment above a thickly forested bowl, ringed in tiers by jagged mountains that rise up like the walls of a colosseum. Tent platforms are democratically arranged along the cliff edge so that everyone has a view to the west, while the vegetation between the tents and the sheer rock wall behind provides a welcome sense of privacy.
