Australia Holiday - Apollo Bay to Port Campbell - Melba and the Apostles

Counting the Apostles - November 5th 2012

Tree Ferns abound in Melba Gully

Proper equipment for a rainforest

We said cheerio to our pleasant host and hostess at the Motel and headed off West on the next leg of our road trip.
The Great Ocean Road leaves the coast for some distance as it passes through the forest of the Great Otway National Park and the pastures beyond.

Melba Gully was a good find, just after Lavers Hill. It's a rain forest walk named after the Opera Singer, not the peach dessert that was named after the Opera Singer.. These short excursions into the bush break up the driving very nicely. The stream running through the gully is home to Platypus. Unfortunately they were not entertaining today, probably the wrong time of day. Most animals here seem to like to do an early matinee and then a soiree at teatime or dusk.

The only other people fielding in the gully were an Aussie couple from Melbourne who were camping at Johanna, a coastal village nearby. They were even coming back later in the evening to look at the glow worms. Definitely Dame Nelly fans! We had a nice sandwich in the Cafe at Princetown, twin town with the one on Dartmoor with a high security prison. Not really, it was just a hamlet and marked the return to the Ocean.

Two of the Twelve Apostles

Pommy Tourist by the Apostles

The Twelve Apostles are the main tourist attraction in this stretch. This section of coast is characterised by high sandstone cliffs. Erosion leaves behind sandy pillars stranded in the Ocean. There are nearly a dozen of these in a short area. Tourists make a pilgrimage to them in their thousands. The come in by the bus load, the wealthier taking helicopter flights along the coast. We stopped just short of the tourist centre and went down Gibsons Steps to the beach. The rain from the rain forest had followed us so it was a bit drizzly but the pillars and the cliffs were very impressive. After that we went to the tourist centre and elbowed our way to the viewing platforms full of trippers. In hindsight, we should have gone first thing in the morning.

Our destination for the day, Port Campbell, was only just up the road. The harbour is a big bite out of the cliffs where a river meets the sea. Set behind the harbour, the town itself is quite interesting. It is partly developed for tourism so there are plenty of places to stay but it had bit of character about it. We liked the rusty petrol pumps where we filled up Yaris 3. The grocery store was a bit empty and expensive however. The Tourist Office found us a place to stay, the Lady was from the UK and drove down from Camperdown each day. Our accommodation, Summers Rest Units, was a bit pricey but we had a nice surprise. Behind the nondescript white door by the loo was a real washer and dryer. Oh, what fun we had. Our neighbour in the next cabin was from Queensland so we had a good bit of banter with him about the weather and cars. He had a nice upmarket Mazda and boasted entertainingly about all the bells and whistles it had. We had some difficulty extolling the virtues and advantages of our little Yaris but we did our very best. Having a spare tyre and rear wiper was not seen by him as being a bell or even a whistle but we countered with the virtues of a narrow wheelbase and low profile on the bendy roads of the Victorian Coast. Fortunately his wife called him to his Tea before he could respond.