On Tuesday - March 18th - K and I completed our road trip along the Great Ocean Road. If you didn't read my last post, you may want to check it out to find out more about this famous stretch of road in Australia - and Victoria more precisely.
We completed our journey the previous day in Apollo Bay, which sits near the bottom of Australia/Victoria on the southern coast. Because Apollo Bay was about 1/2 way on our journey and the only significant town in that area, we actually had to back up on the Great Ocean Road to catch some interesting sites before continuing east.
We started by descending to the absolute bottom of the southern coast - Cape Otway. At the bottom of Cape Otway was - of course - the Cape Otway lighthouse. This is the oldest lighthouse on the Australian mainland (built in 1848). While still functional (the facility tour operator turned on the beacon for us), there sits a small, unmanned little shed just outside the lighthouse that serves as the modern day working version. All automated now and works remotely with more sophisticated coastal instrumentation provided (as most lighthouses around the world now do the same).
The trip down Cape Otway required we traverse through some beautiful, thick rainforest that sits right on the coast and up through a valley back into the bush. This part of the country reminded me a bit of New Zealand's rainforests - perhaps not quite as thick. On our way down to the lighthouse at the southern point, we saw a number of cars pulled over and people getting out and looking up into the eucalyptus trees. We asked at the lighthouse what people were looking at and found out they were watching the koalas that inhabited the area.
So as we returned through the forest back out to the Great Ocean Road, we were keeping our eyes peeled. Sure enough, we spotted several. K was beside herself. These cute little marsupials look like teddy bears with larger ears. Most were snoozing in the trees. This little chubby beast was just sitting a few feet above eye level letting all sorts of people shoot pictures of him as he was chomping on his meal of eucalyptus leaves. K has a huge camera with a fantastic zoom lens. Some of her pictures could be featured in National Geographic. My picture is adequate to give you an idea how close we came to a koala.
We stopped for a small hike through the rainforest (Great Otway National Forest) to the Triplet Falls. If you recall from an earlier post, K and I established a rule on the trip to "never pass up a chance to see a falls" in this part of the world. The falls did not let us down and kept the rule in tact.
On the trail were a few markers and some very old milling equipment. The trail to the falls was well cleared and traveled now, but it is hard to imagine life in this part of the world back in the 1800's. Just carving out an existence, fighting off critters (lots of things that kill you quickly in Australia), and isolation would have been tough. We are in heavy bush miles from anyone or anything here - and that is in modern day Australia. Out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere is closer to civilization than we were and yet here is this old mill. I can't imagine what it would have been like. Australia would have been a hard and unforgiving life for many seeking new opportunity.
Next we visited the Otway Walk. This is a bit of a tourist trap - which K and I usually try to avoid, but our hotel offered discount tickets and it was written up in the guide books so we decided to give it a go. The Otway walkway is a set of metal walks set up in the rainforest canopy - about 25 meters (75 feet) up in the trees. It was a little gimmicky, but still fun and the views of the rainforest from these platforms was neat.
From Otway forest, we were back on the Great Ocean Road and the coast views again. Further east, there are fewer limestone cliffs and more beaches. Beautiful, long beaches that surfers of the world flock to for the waves. Big waves!
One interesting stop was the "Artillery Rocks." This is a small rock outcrop where the waves have cut round granite boulders to make it look like old cannon shells have been left behind.
Further east (and a bit north) we visited Airey's Inlet and the Split Point lighthouse - also called the White Queen. This was the last of the many lighthouses on the coast. It was also one of the last of the old lighthouses to be built on the coast (1891).
We wrapped up the day visiting Bells Beach. This is the very famous surf beach in Australia. It holds the world's best surf competition each year and was made famous by the movie Point Break (starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze - although the movie never actually used the real Bells Beach - it was filmed in Oregon).
Think you have what it takes to master big waves (I can hear my nephews and nieces having visited Ocean Isle Beach say "bring it")? Take a look at these waves. The little dot on the white foam in the picture is a surfer! And we are told the day was fairly mild. Waves of 10 meters are not uncommon!
There were dozens of surfers this evening, and each one looked as buff as the most buff guy or gal you would ever see at the gym. Softies and meatheads trying to learn how to surf should not show up at Bells Beach looking for their first surf lesson.
So that was our trip along one of the most magnificent coasts in the world. K and I shall always remember our journey on the Great Ocean Road.
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