Day 21 - 24/07/12 Volcano Loop 270 km
The weather is looking OK today so we decided to do a tour north through an area that has lots of extinct (and some dormant) volcanoes. But before we headed off we had to feed the birds and we had a ring-in this morning – maybe a juvenile?
After leaving the cottage at about 9:15 we headed to Camperdown (no not the suburb in Sydney with the Children’s Hospital!) and followed a narrow dirt road through some majestic forests. These areas have to be seen to be believed and photos cannot do them justice (so there are none!). We arrived at Mt Leura (Camperdown) and had morning tea before doing a walk down from the top of the hill into the crater and back out again.
Next to Mt Leura is Mt Sugarloaf an almost perfect cone.
Then followed some country roads to Red Rock for lunch. As we are a bit higher than the rest of the area and the wind has come up it was a bit cool and we needed to seek shelter as best we could so the picnic rug made a good wind break.
Red Rock is another of the volcanoes in the area and makes for great views across the area.
Back into Colac to stop at McDonalds to use the wi-fi and then refuelled (the car) and headed back to the cottage where we arrived at 5:40, another long day.
Day 22 - 25/07/12 Great Ocean Road West 162 km
We were woken by our alarm bird at about 7:30. This is the 2nd day in a row that the Kookaburra has come knocking on the window door. If you think 7:30 is a bit later to be getting up you have to remember that we are much further west and south than Sydney and the sun does not come up until about 7:30!
As the weather is looking good …
….we decided to head west to have a look at the coastal scenery.
First stop is “Bay of Islands”
Followed by “Bay of Martyrs” and morning tea in Peterborough sitting in the car as it is now windy, cold and partly overcast and there are no shelter sheds.
Next was “The Grotto”
.. and then the famous “London Bridge” which fell down in 1990
At London Bridge they are surveying the number of Penguins and their nests and we could see lots of Penguin foot prints.
Great waves and wildflowers and the number of Grass Trees had Joy very excited. Imagine if they were in full flower!!)
Next was “The Arch” (wonder how they get their names?)
We then had lunch in the park at Port Campbell. Very much a “summer holiday town”.
After lunch the next stop was “Loch Ard Gorge” and we are getting more and more tourists as this area and the next are the main tourist attractions along this part of the coast. Loch Ard was a ship that ran aground (on the far left hand rocks in the photo below) in 1878. It had 36 crew and 18 passengers. Of these only 2 survived. One was washed up on the shore in the Gorge (far right hand side of the photo below). He then saw someone in the water in the gorge and rescued her.
Loch Ard Gorge
Loch Ard Gorge from above
Loch Ard Gorge from beach
In the Loch Ard Gorge area there is also Island Archway (although there is no arch)..
Island Archway
…. And Thunder Cave.
The next and last stop, and by far the most popular, was “The Twelve Apostles” (although there is much debate about how many there are actually remaining). This is the real tourist mecca with 3 helicopters flying overhead in a constant pattern. We also worked out that the width of the paths are proportional to the number of tourists, and this path was wide! But it is a spectacular sight but next time we need to visit in the morning when the sun is shining on the face of the Apostles.
We were feeling generous and took the kids with us this time..
The warning signs are fairly descriptive about what might happen..
We must have looked the part as Les was asked twice and Joy once to take photos of other people posing in front of the Apostles. Just as we were leaving the sun broke through..
Back at the cottage at 4:10 which is the earliest arrival at the cottage so we got to see the birds that come in of an afternoon. We are not positive but think they are “Gang-Gangs”
Day 23 - 26/07/12 Glenaire 0 km
Our alarm bird let us down this morning, so we slept in a bit. Mind you, the weather was pretty awful, so there was no point in getting out of bed early anyway. And today was always going to be a rest day, unless it was brilliant sunshine, in which case we would have made an effort.
Basically it rained all day, with the only thing that varied being how heavy. We spent the day reading…
…doing the diary, feeding the waterlogged rosellas, who seem to come visiting whenever they see someone in the kitchen…
, watching the kookaburras…
The gang-gangs visited again, but they leave it until early evening, so getting a decent photo is very difficult.
Day 24 - 27/07/12 Triplet Falls and Glenaire 80 km
What a relief - our alarm bird worked this morning. Today was planned to be a waterfall day, and it started out looking good – a bit of cloud around, but also some blue sky, so in theory it should be good to do the walks and take waterfall photos. The plan was to do Triplet Falls first, then Hopetoun Falls, then Beauchamp Falls if we could fit it in and the walk didn’t look too bad, as it is described variously as grade medium or difficult.
We made it to the track at about 10:15, with the weather looking OK still – clouds with patches of blue sky, but also a bit of fog. To be on the safe side, we wore our wet weather gear.
The walk was quite steep, but well formed, and the steps were good and solid. The walk took us through some wonderful rainforest, with some beautiful mountain ash trees in amongst the ferns.
Whilst on the walk, we sighted the rare, carnivorous Cape Otway snail…..
……No, we are not kidding.
But the highlight of the walk was most definitely Triplet Falls. There were a number of different spots to take photos, and Les took advantage of all of them.
But Les had to limit the photography session because the weather had taken a nasty turn. Thank goodness we had our wet weather gear on, because the rain bucketed down. Yes, we know we were in a rainforest, so it is supposed to rain, but this was ridiculous (but we are in the wettest area in Victoria with over 2,000 mm per annum in rainfall). We made quick work of the rest of the walk – took us an hour in total.
So we made the tough decision to give the other waterfalls a miss, and head back to Lavers Hill to the café for morning tea.
After morning tea, instead of going straight back to the cottage, we took a detour via Johanna, which is a little beach-side locality. The drive down there was a bit of variety from the normal road we’ve driven a few times now. But we didn’t even get out of the car once we got to the beach because it was still wet, windy and miserable.
We are no longer going “Awwww, how cute” when we see lambs, as we’ve been seeing so many, but this one caught our attention.
There was also one which was white with a black face and ears but it did not want its photo taken.
We were back at the cottage just before 1pm. Another lazy afternoon, with reading, doing puzzles, Joy doing her exercises (the super-tough trainer from her Saturday morning sessions sent an email with details of what the class will be doing while she is away, so Joy thought she should at least make an effort to keep up).
The cottage has a spa on the deck, so we had a spa tonight. It was lovely relaxing in the spa with the sound of the sea crashing onto the rocks (we are a few miles from the coast, but can see and hear the ocean) and the kookaburras laughing in the trees.
Soup and scones for tea, and watching the footy. Strangely, we can’t get Channel 10 here, and Channel 9 is Imparja, which is the station that covers NT, outback QLD and outback SA – go figure.
Day 25 - 28/07/12 Great Ocean Road East 207 km
Again our alarm bird was not working today. We woke to very heavy rain but it quickly cleared to partly cloudy so we packed for a day’s touring and headed off east to Apollo Bay. We stopped at Kennett River to see if we could spot a Koala and we got reasonably close (about 3 feet away)
and worked our way up to Airey’s Inlet where we had morning tea in a café. We had planned to stop at Carisbrook Falls but the weather had closed in and it was raining when we arrived. When we arrived at the café it was sunny but during morning tea it rained and when we were ready to leave it was sunny again. We had not stopped for photos on the way up so it was a slower trip back as we were stopping for photos as the sun was now behind us and also the stopping spots are on the left hand side on the way south.
We stopped in Apollo Bay for lunch at the Apollo Bay Hotel. We had considered taking a detour to visit Hopetoun Falls but the weather had closed in again (in fact it was bucketing down when we passed the turn off for Hopetoun Falls) so just headed back to the cottage to start on the packing. Quiet afternoon watching TV, doing crosswords and starting packing the car as we have an early start tomorrow.
Day 26 - 29/07/12 Glenaire to Cottage on the Murray 547 km
As we had a fair way to go today it was an early start (even set the alarm – the electric clock type one, not the bird). We packed the car, said goodbye to the cottage…
…and were on the way just after 8am. The weather wasn’t kind to us (again), and we had fog and misty rain for quite some time.
You can tell when you get onto the roads that are used by people doing weekends away from Melbourne – multiple lanes, crazy drivers – aagghhh! After driving around on country roads for so long, it was an unpleasant experience. We by-passed Geelong (there is a motorway to do this) and stopped at Werribee for morning tea. We then by-passed Melbourne (another motorway), and made it to Seymour for lunch, which we had in a nice little café opposite the sports ground, where the locals were playing a game of aerial ping pong (or AFL, for those who care).
By this time, the sun had come out, and Joy had to get out her sunglasses – first time in almost 2 weeks.
On our way into Shepparton, we travelled behind this vehicle…
…probably a relative of Joy’s, as she thinks there is a branch of the family down this way.
The Shepparton stop was purely to go to the SPC factory outlet, where we did some bargain shopping. Then it was back on the road, back into the country, and up to the Murray River. We just love the scenery!
We arrived at the cottage, which is halfway between Rutherglen and Howlong, around 5:15, unpacked the car, and settled down to an evening of the Olympics on TV.
