Great Ocean Road

Friday 6th March – The Great Ocean Road

Left Geelong and drove to Torquay to the start of the Great Ocean Road. At Urquarts Bluff, the rocks were banded in swirls of pink and red like a raspberry ripple ice cream..

Stopped at Lorne to look at the Erskine Falls. They would have been spectacular if more than a dribble of water was falling over them, that's the problem with 5 year droughts. However, as we walked to Teddy's Lookout over the bay, we came upon a koala sitting in a tree and as we walked back to kookaburras alighted in trees next to us.

Driving on, I saw an echidna scrambling along at the side of the road, but by the time we had found somewhere to park and walk back it had disappeared into the bush. Later we rounded a corner and saw lots of people at the side of the road. We parked and walked back to find three koalas perched precariously in trees by the road. One completely asleep and oblivious to its audience.

Then we went inland and turned down the recently metalled Turton track through miles of a tree fern lined narrow lanes through the Otway rain forest. This brought us to the Otway Fly, 600m of steel walkway supported by cable stayed steel towers up to 30m above ground level which meant we were walking amongst the treetop canopy of Eucalyptus mountain ash and black beech.

Onwards to the 12 Apostles, iconic Cretaceous sandstone sea stacks jutting out into the Southern Ocean with the surf pounding at their base. Quite spectacular. The day had been overcast with showers, but next we stopped at the Bay of Islands and it was lit by the evening sun and was utterly magnificent. The ocean had broken through a gap in the cliffs to form an inland bay dotted with sea stacks.

Quick dash for our night's lodging at LadyBay Apartments at Warrnambool. These were very comfortable and luckily had a restaurant attached as it was late by the time we arrived.

Saturday 7th March – to Robe

Warrnambool seaside was very pretty from our balcony in the morning, but alas we had no time to explore it. After replenishing our supplies, breakfast occurred at the Tower Hill Nature Reserve. This was an extinct volcanic crater complete with lake and central peak almost invisible from the adjacent main road. As we eat breakfast, Christine happened to look up to discover a koala fast asleep in the crook of a branch above us. A few minutes later an emu strutted imperiously past, pretending indifference to the obviously tempting morsels. One of our best breakfast stops.

We tried to follow a trail to 'the last volcano', but became slightly lost. In our efforts to find another path, I climbed a hill to be confronted by a kangaroo taller than myself. He decided to bound away into the brush, but when Christine joined me another one broke cover into view.

Eventually we retraced our route and found the central crater lake. Then we drove to Portland and a strange 'fossilised forest' at Cape Bridgewater. Here dune sands had overlain basalt, then the calciferous groundwater drawn up and evaporating had turned the sands into a limestone. Some form of solution had then taken place to form multitudes of empty tree-like vertical cylindrical cavities with concretionary walls. It looked like a fossilised forest, but probably the 'trees' had started off life as thick grasses.

Lunch at the beach, then drove to Mount Gambier where we looked into the blue lake. This was a maar (never heard the term before) a volcanic eruption where the ejecta just sits on the pre-existing surface. In this case a limestone, so you could see a thin layer of basalt on its surface, then a mound of volcanic ash. All in the crater walls around a beautiful blue circular lake.

Crossed into Southern Australia, where thankfully the speed limit is 110 km/hr and the sun shines. Drove hard to the comfortable Robetown motor inn.