MacKenzie Falls, Grampians...

This is the place where I very nearly died. See that handrail towards the bottom of this picture, winding its way downwards? Well, it's there to aid people walking down all those steps. Now....imagine that many steps times about a million more steps and you're starting to get close to how many freakin' ​steps there actually are to get to the bottom of MacKenzie Falls.

MacKenzie Falls (aka Step Central)

It all started innocently enough. After doing a reccy the night before, I made a plan to photograph the sunrise from The Balconies near Reeds Lookout in the Grampians. At 5.15am, I peeked out the window to see a promising clear sky, just beginning to lighten. 10 minutes later, I was on the road to Reeds. 15 minutes later I was completely shrouded in cloud. I said a few choice words, and headed back towards the motel. I stopped at Lake Bellfield as the sun began to show itself but it was raining by 6.15am so I did what any self-respecting person would do, and went back to bed for a few hours.

Lake Bellfield trees

After breakfast, I headed back in the direction of Reeds, because I had yesterday seen a sign for MacKenzie Falls and figured that might be a good thing to visit. I had no idea of where it was, how big it was, what kind of amenities were there...nada. So here's some things I learnt:

• it's apparently Victoria's largest waterfall;
• it's easy to get to - 15 minutes drive from Halls Gap;
• there's 2 tracks to walk: one goes to a lookout over the entire falls area and another goes to the base of the falls and beyond;
• the path to the base is paved, has lots of steps and is steep in parts;
• there are plenty of places to stop for a breather, and you will be very thankful for these on the way back up;
• your legs will feel like jelly;
• your lungs may feel like they've been sat on by a buffalo;
• your heart might actually explode;
• my chest hurts right now just thinking about this walk.

Fortunately, my lungs didn't explode, although I was beginning to wonder how messy a lung explosion would be, and if my Will was up to date. My knees did a lot of complaining though - they really don't like inclines or steps, so there had to be a lot of sitting down afterwards to balance the torture.

MacKenzie is definitely worth going to, but pace yourself. And brace yourself for the steps.