Australia Holiday - Barwon Downs to Torquay

A weekend with some good sports - November 10th

A sandy beach backed by Norfolk Island Pines - must be in Australia

It's the weekend, let's head for the beach! We had a treat in store today, we were meeting up with some nice people we had met a month or so previously at Hot Water Beach. They have a place in Torquay and we were invited to stay. We took the back route to Torquay using very quiet and sometimes arrow straight roads. We could have gone back through Forrest and down to the Ocean Road to get there but that would have taken a lot longer. Yesterday's storms had passed over and it was a brilliant sunny day as we rolled into Torquay. We found their property without any problems. The smart two storey modern house with large first floor balconies at front and back was a bit of a contrast with the previous night's lodgings!

Out and about with the Victorians

We were soon off to Barwon Heads and to a seaside Cafe, The Dunes, for Lunch. Quite a few people were enjoying the beach and a Junior Surfing competition was in progress out on the waves. Cadel Evans lives around here but we did not see him out on his bike. We were soon out on our bikes though. Jacqui had an electric bike and delighted in speeding past me on the hills. Nice bike ride along the coast as far as Bells Beach, the iconic surf beach. In the evening it was steaks on the barbie on the balcony. By the way, the link between Barwon Downs and Barwon Heads only dawned on me later on, I think there might be a River Barwon - doh!

Australia Holiday - Port Fairy to Barwon Downs - Out in the Long Grass

Heading Inland - November 9th

The Elms of Camperdown

Our lunch stop in Camperdown

A Night in the Long Grass

In the Long Grass

We left Port Fairy at checkout time and headed along the coastal road past the golf links towards Warrnambool. We were now heading East and our route took us inland through superb farming country towards Camperdown, our lunch spot for today. I really like the rural towns and this was a great one. Magnificent Elm trees stand tall and shady for the whole length of the main street. Haven't seen Elm trees since school-days so it was wonderful to see them in their early summer foliage. We had lunch in a beautiful and convivial Cafe and could not resist a crumble dessert topped with coconut. Could easily have stayed on but we wanted to get a bit closer to Torquay, tomorrows destination. Colac was the next big town. Unfortunately the weather had deteriorated and every time we left the car there was a deluge. A lot of people told us about the drought in Victoria but it was pretty wet and very green while we were there. Perhaps we are the Rainmakers. Anyway, we were pushing on towards Barwon Downs and a night 'In the Long Grass'. What a nice name for a little cottage on a farm. Picture a little cream cottage set among the gum trees. A Kookaburra sits on the swing, Parrots swoop around amongst the trees, a couple of hens pick and scratch on the terrace.

Always wanted a Terrace - sadly it was a bit cold to sit out

Actually the cottage looked fairly basic on the outside although it had all the mod. cons. we needed inside. The shower enclosure was a very practical. It was lined with corrugated iron.
The owner was a nice guy. We did not meet his wife, which was a pity, as she was away in the City. He seemed a very laid back character and we had a good chat. Our little Cottage was delivered second-hand on a truck from Melbourne nearly 30 years ago. They were stopped by the Police when they spotted someone inside, probably thought it was a sitting tenant or a Granny. In fact one of the guys had climbed inside to see where a funny noise was coming from. Seems our friend was happy there and he set about building a large house just up the track. It's partly built with mud bricks and the design is a unique creation by his wife. Apparently the first batch of bricks turned back to mud in heavy rain. Bit of a worry but it looks good now anyway. A couple of days earlier the dogs had gone berserk, our host though they had found a snake when, in fact, they had found a friendly Koala on their terrace. We did not see any but we left our friend fixing his tractor and went back to cook our Tea and finish off last night's wine. TW spotted a big spider on my pillow just after I had put my head down for the night. I managed to get rid of the thing without fully waking up. Made sure I put my shoes on when going for my nocturnal wander though!

How Green is our Valley

Block Splitter or Untamed Turkey at the Forrest Brewing Company?

Nearly found the rainbows end

TW out in the sticks

In the Australia we dream about

Happy as a Parrot

Our first Kookaburra

Aussie Thrush

We were in a fairly remote area, there was shop in one direction in Barwon Downs and a Brewery in the other at Forrest. The guy running the shop was a local looking after the place while the owner was on holiday. We had a good bit of banter about football and the like, bought some Milk and then headed South towards the Brewery. The micro-brewery makes a good selection of beers. They use American Hops so the one I tried was bit of a Budweiser. They also had a very strong 9% beer, called Block Splitter. I did not try that. Stout was good. Anyway its a nice little place and worth a drive. There are a lot of Mountain Bike Routes in the area so a Pedal and a Pint with a bit of a feed is a popular pursuit.

Australia Holiday - Port Fairy - seeing the sights

Port Fairy -Wallaby and waterside - November 7th and 8th

Port Fairy and Norfolk Island Pines

Port Fairy is a very smart little town. It has a calm sandy beach, a rough ocean beach, a river, a lighthouse, nice shops and a good golf course. Where better to spend a couple of nights or perhaps even a life-time. We found a nice studio by the beach, the Main Beach Holiday Units, with a great view of the sea. Not sure why the Public Loo obliterated some of our outlook but, heh, can't expect perfection. And our flat did have a washing machine and dryer. We saw a lovely Wallaby out by the lighthouse, another first for us.

Yacht Club

Nice old Town of Port Fairy

Walking by the lighthouse

The calm, sandy beach at Port Fairy

What a Wallaby

We also bounced back down the road to Tower Hill to see the Kangaroos at dusk. TW stayed in the car this time on account of the snakes. Back in town we asked the check-out girl in the Port Fairy Supermarket about snakes, fast becoming an obsession after conquering the spiders. She said she had a Tiger Snake in her garden last week. Ooerr, did you wait for it to go away? Nah, got the spade and killed it, they don't go away. Mental note, bring a shovel next time, or maybe two.

Australia Holiday - Warrnambool to Port Fairy - saying g'day to the Koala's at Tower Hill

A bike ride and then animal spotting at Tower Hill - 7th November 2012

Tower Hill and a lovely Koala

A brilliant sunny morning saw us out on bikes pedalling along a very fine bike track from Warrnambool to Logans Beach. The path runs just behind the magnificent 'Lady Bay' beach. Logans Beach is popular with breeding whales in the winter. It was popular with surfers today, and a couple of pom cyclists who were having a whale of a time!

Lady Bay

Logans Beach

Good Morning Warrnambool

Gets rocky going West from the 'bool'

We had to give back the bikes after a great morning ride and headed off towards Port Fairy. On the route is another one of the highlights of the Aussie road trip so far, Tower Hill. It is a National Park next to the road in the crater of an extinct volcano. We were ordered to go there by our neighbours at the Motel in Warrnambool. They said it was to die for! You can drive through it and there is a small visitor centre in the middle. It's a one-way park so you need to make sure you go in through the correct gate. We chatted to an Aussie down by the Visitor Centre who gave us a run down on what we would see wandering and slithering about. We were a bit unnerved by the fact that he had just spotted a Tiger Snake and a Copperhead on the board-walk. "Aw yeah, we have about 17 of the 19 most venomous snakes in the world over here". Bit too much information for us. Surprised they don't import the missing two varieties to make it a full house!

Emu - not amused

Koala - happy up a tree

In the crater

I'm off to bed, cannot cope with these 5 hour days

A private moment - not in the tree for its Poo

We asked the Lady at the Visitor Centre about the snakes. Were there many? Oh, yes lots of them. But don't worry they don't usually bite!!!. Usually, usually, usually. We tried to get our heads around usually, we would prefer never, even seldom would be too much and too often. We were certainly not going anywhere near the bloody board-walk. Don't want any snake photos, they are not photogenic. Now a Koala having a poo, that's different. A Lady also photographing the defecating cuddly animal remarked that seeing the Koala doing a big job had made her day. Think she needs to get out more! She should be thankful it was not above her in the tree. Now that would have made a good photo. Nice to see our first Emu's. Oh, and we did not see any snakes on our walks.
By the way, getting born is about the only thing that happens quickly for a Koala. They are born 35 days after their parents mate. They then sleep for about 19 hours a day. Don't think that Eucalyptus leaves is a High Energy diet somehow. We headed for Port Fairy, another place recommended by our Aussie neighbours.

Nasty looking Lizard

Australia Holiday - Port Campbell to Warrnambool

At the end of the Ocean Road - 6th November 

The Beach at Port Campbell

Heading out on the Ocean

Looking East towards the Apostles

Rock formation don't stop with Apostles

Nice spot for our picnic lunch

The sun came back today and we took a cliff top walk along the Port Campbell Discovery Trail. Good views as we walked around the coast.  The sea was a millpond, even I would have ventured out on one of the boat trips. Having had our morning constitutional we headed westwards in the Yaris. Lots of stops along the way to view the beaches and 'rock' formations.

London Bridge, Victoria, has fallen down

London Bridge used to have two arches and it was possible to walk right out to the end. In 1990 the first arch collapsed leaving two tourists stranded. They had to be rescued by a helicopter. Must have been a bit scary. Our day was more tranquil, we had a picnic on a beach near Peterborough, a very sleepy village on Melbourne Cup Day. The road then moved away from the coast and we passed through dairy country, the herds here are massive, before hitting Warrnambool. Our first fair sized town for a while looked, initially, a bit North American. It started with a sprawl of developments along the Highway. However, once off the main road there was a very decent Aussie Town Centre. Warrnambool sits high on a cliff so can get a bit windy. We dropped over the cliff and down to the coast and found a surprisingly good beach and Park Area. Imagine it gets busy in the tourist season. Lady Bay stretches for miles. Seemed like a good spot to stay and we found a Motel, the Bayside Lodge, just back from the Bay with friendly owners and chatty neighbours.

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.

Australia Holiday - Cape Otway Koalas

Looking up at the wildlife - 4th November

Koalas - in a trees with no leaves

Tourists with a Koala - sort of - behind you!

Walking in the bush

Today, our mission was to see some Koalas in the wild and visit the Southernmost point of Australia. We succeeded in the first objective! Our success was tinged with a bit of sadness though. There are loads of Koalas in the trees alongside the road we travelled on, down to Cape Otway. The trouble is they are eating the eucalyptus leaves too quickly which is killing the trees. The ongoing drought must not help either. So some of the poor little Koalas appear to be sitting in trees stripped bare. Logic says they should move to another tree but apparently they are very territorial and aggressive. The Authorities are talking about having a cull on the basis that there are too many to be supported by the healthy trees available to them. We counted 16 Koalas at one point where we stopped and there were probably more we did not spot. Hopefully they can be rehoused in some nice healthy trees and will live happily ever after. TW wanted to relocate one herself. Must find out what that scratching noise is in the boot?

Cape Otway Lighthouse - as close as we were allowed to go.

Maits Rest - walking in the rain forest

There is an old lighthouse at the end of the road. It was too expensive for us so we took a walk along a bush track. There was a viewpoint where we saw the lighthouse. It was a good walk but with ten foot high bushes on either side there was not a lot to see apart from bushes. We did pass the cemetery for the lighthouse. The lighthouse was incredibly isolated and was only supplied once a year. There was no road to get there in the old days so supplies came in by ship. Difficult to imagine having just one home delivery a year. The graves included infants born to the Lighthouse Keeper. The bush track we were on is just one section of the Great Ocean Walk that winds it way along the coast from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles. Must be a hard walk and not for the feint hearted.

For us motorists there are some impressive rain forest areas and beech forests just off the Ocean Road. Not far from the stricken Eucalyptus trees, maybe 15 minutes, there was an accessible gully full of tree ferns and giant trees. We took a walk through Maits Rest and it was like walking into an air-conditioned room after the heat of the bush. Only a short 30 minute walk but gave us an idea of what the rain forest is like.

We heated up again on our lunchtime picnic on the beach at Marengo.

We are working very hard at being proper tourists so lunch was followed by a much needed afternoon snooze back at Skenes Creek.