Day 17 to 20 Grampians and Great Ocean Road

Day 17 - 20/07/12 The Grampians  38 km

Since it was a very grey old morning, we had a lazy time and didn’t get away from the cottage until 11am. We didn’t go far, though, just to the zoo, which we can see from the cottage. For a regional, family-owned zoo, and only costing $22 each to get in, it is pretty good. We spent 2½ hours wandering around, even though we got rained on a couple of times. The Close Encounters were pretty cheap too, but we didn’t bother with them, as they were only with things like meerkats, snakes, lizards etc – no big cats there!

As always, the meerkats and monkeys were fun to watch. The dingos were pretty laid back

Surprisingly, the tawny frog-mouth was wide awake

But the wallabies must have had a big night.

To show you how close we were staying to the zoo, this is our cabin, photo taken from the zoo.

 

Whenever we go to Taronga Zoo, we love watching the red pandas, and were looking forward to them here, but alas, they weren’t very active.

The pygmy marmoset monkeys had just recently (as in a few days ago) had babies. Here is Dad carrying them around (you can just see the curly tail of one of them).

On the way back to the cottage, we decided to go and see what Pomonal (the closest town to our cottage) looked like – and it wasn’t a total waste of time, because on the way there, we got to see a pretty rainbow!

Back to the cottage for lunch, then into Halls Gap for the internet (free wi-fi at one of the cafés so we had to have afternoon tea there). When we got back to the cottage, a mob of kangaroos were eating right up close to the cottage. One of them had a very young joey in her pouch.

Day 18 - 21/07/12 The Grampians  121 km

Today was always going to be a full day, as we were planning to do 2 walks, but by the end of it, we actually did 3!

It was a clear morning, and Les was up with the birds to take photos as the sun rose. There was a pretty good frost, and fog rolling across the hills.

Once we had breakfast, we were on our way to Mt Zero, in the northern Grampians. Along the way, there were so many grass trees, Joy just didn’t know where to look. Unfortunately not many had spikes, but still, she was SO excited!

Once we got to Mt Zero, the big decision – morning tea before or after the walk? We decided to do the walk first. The brochure said it was 1 to 1 ½ hrs, and graded medium, so off we went. It started off with a very pleasant track

 

But it soon became a bit of a scramble.

But we made it. Then after a short rest, it was back down the mountain. This time, we took the alternative route, through a very narrow space. Les was wearing the backpack, so couldn’t turn sideways to fit through – it was a bit tight!

Turns out the walk was more on the 1 ½ hours than 1 hour, and more on the harder side of medium, so morning tea was very welcome at 11:30am (Joy was hanging out for a coffee!!!).

The next walk was to Beehive Falls (Les was really looking forward to this). The brochure said it was 1 to 1 ½ hrs, and graded medium, just like Mt Zero, so we were expecting the same type of walk, but it was more on the 1 hour, and more on the easy side of medium. We were back at the car by 1:15pm, even with Les spending time taking photos of the waterfall.

We drove to Troopers Creek for lunch, and had fun fighting off the local wildlife. First, a kangaroo wanted his share, but gave up and sat under a tree and sulked.

But we never thought we’d have to protect our lunch from a Jenny Wren! These were quite aggressive, and even tried to pick up one of the knives! Joy was keeping her arms folded, but one still jumped up on to her arms – desperate for food!

We then drove around to Wartook, and along the same road we had travelled a number of times before, because we figured we would have enough time to do the walk to the Grand Canyon.

It had been such a lovely day until then, but it was threatening rain – dark grey clouds hanging around. But we took the risk, and did the walk anyway. It was definitely worth it, and photos don’t really do the Grand Canyon justice.

It started to spit a bit on the way back to the car, but we didn’t really get very wet.

Back to the cottage at around 4pm.

Day 19 - 22/07/12 The Grampians to Glenaire (Great Ocean Road)  385 km

We had planned to get away at 9:00 and we actually left right on 9:00. The first stop was to be Piccaninny for a 1 to 1 ½ hour walk but along the way we saw more of the damage that the major rain event from last year had done

After arriving at Piccaninny and with fog around we decided to give the walk a miss and move on. We arrived at Penshurst and we were looking for a covered picnic table and by luck we took the road to Mount Rouse Reserve and found a covered set of seats to shelter from the rain and fog. After morning tea we walked to the top of the mountain (an extinct volcano) and just on queue the rain cleared.

Next stop was Tower Hill Reserve near Warrnambool. This is an amazing site as it is an extinct  volcano that then had the top of it blow off. What is now left is an outer rim, lake and a central outcrop of islands.

We did a walk and were lucky enough to spot a Koala with a baby!!

Lunch was Calamari and Chips (yummy!) at Warrnambool. By the time we left Warrnambool it was 2:50 so we were running late as we still had a fair way to go. Along the road to Colac there was a section that had “dry stone walls” as fences. These went on for kilometres and kilometres.

Stopped at Colac for shopping and left to head south at 5:15. Arrived at Glenaire at 6:25 in the dark and fog.

Day 20 - 23/07/12 Cape Otway, Maits Rest and Otway Treetop Walk (Great Ocean Road)  139 km

As we had arrived the night before we had not seen the view so when we got up this morning we had a great view but cannot wait until we get a sunny morning.

We had breakfast on the verandah and had to share with the resident Rosellas

 

Headed off at 10:00 with the first stop being the lookout just down the road. It is amazing how close to the beach they farm.

From here we headed to Cape Otway Lighthouse

 and had a wander around the grounds and also climbed to the top of the lighthouse. We followed up with morning tea at the café. On the way out we spotted many Koalas. We never thought we’d get to the stage of saying “oh, just another koala”.

We did a walk at Maits Rest which was through some old forests and had some massive trees that photos cannot do justice.

unch was at Apollo Bay and then on to Otway Tree Top Walk. The road to the walk (from Apollo Bay side) is very pretty but windy and through some magnificent forests but it has a 40 kph speed limit and we were doing about 30 kph. The Tree Top walk follows some old trails down to where they have built an impressive steel walkway that is about 25 metres above the ground. Les was nervous about going on the walk but did well until he got to the highest part. Joy then went out on the cantilever section whilst Les headed for firmer ground.

Back to the cabin for a quiet night.