29th March 2011
A short drive this morning saw us in Anglesea. Jay was keen to try a pedal boat so we hit the river for some vigorous exercise. Exploring this coastal village filled the afternoon. Always on the lookout for good parks we ended up at a beauty which remembered the shipwrecked Inverlochy. Pirates abounded as we used the park as a stage for Jayden's imaginative play. With no designated free camps along the Great Ocean Road we searched around for a place without a "no sleeping in vehicles sign" and ended up in a carpark by the river.
30th March 2011
Another brief drive and we came upon Airley's Inlet lighthouse. We took what turned out to be a private tour of the lighthouse which may be familiar to any "Round the Twist" fans. The tour guide was very interesting and over 45 minutes we wound our way up the tallest lighthouse on the mainland for a splendid view over Eagle Rock.
Most interesting was a topographical map of the Southern Ocean showing Antarctica, Tasmania and southern Victoria. With different colours representing the different depths it was easy to see the deep basin between Tasmania and Antartica where the whales go to feed and then the relatively shallow sheltered shelf joining Tasmania with the mainland where the whales come to give birth between May and November.
Further down the road we went under the Great Ocean Road memorial arch.
This is the third they have constructed because the first had to be removed when the road was widened and the second burnt down in the Ash Wednesday bush fires which devastated this part of Victoria. Heading inland into the Otway National Park took us to Erskine Falls. Set amongst towering Mountain Ash and dense rainforest with heady lemon scents this lovely waterfall splashes down over the mossy sandstone drop to wind it's way out to the ocean.
I was a bit frustrated by the lack of free camp locations when so many places would have been ideal. One in particular with toilets and BBQ's didn't allow me to sleep overnight in Frankie but I could park him there for the night and walk 500m into the bush to camp in a postage stamp sized campsite. I can appreciate that in peak times they wouldn't want caravans and campers clogging up the area and staying for days on end but why they can't allow overnight stays with restrictions like many of the Tassie sites had such as limiting stays to 24 hours or only allowing camping between 5pm and 9am I don't know. So we left a perfectly lovely campsite and headed down to Lorne where we booked into the caravan park for the night. With a bit of time to spare we went exploring the foreshore on our bikes. Lorne's playground resembles a wharf and again lent itself to some great imaginative play. Complete with a dozen trampolines sunk into the ground, a skate park and swimming pool the park area would be very popular in the summer holidays with families.
31st March 2011
Needing to release some energy after sitting at his schoolwork for a couple of hours Jay and I headed back to the park next morning. I was finally able to find a book I've been searching for since before we left home. "The Long Road" by Kerry Greenwood is about four children during the depression years who after their Mum contracts tuberculosis set off to find their father who is working on the Great Ocean Road after returning from the Great War. It has been wonderful reading about the places and history as we travel through the area and I would highly recommend it to anyone teaching their children about Australia's history through literature. Kerry Greenwood has also written another book called "Journey to Eureka" which we read before leaving home about the Eureka stockade.
At the southern end of Lorne Harbour is a long pier jutting into the ocean. Jay decided to try his hand at fishing off the jetty. It looked ideal, just had to allow the line to drop down into the water below the pier and wait for the fish to jump on. In the usual McEwan manner as soon as our hook hit the water the fish fled. Even the other fisherman on the platform who had been doing reasonably well until we arrived didn't pull in another thing and after about an hour or so we all gave up and headed for lunch. The section of the GOR we drove today was breathtaking in it's beauty.
It is what has earned the road the honour of being considered by many one of the top ten best drives in the world. We stopped regularly just to take in the view. Usually I don't mind Jayden playing screen games as we drive but for this stretch of road games were banned and he was ordered to look out the window and take in the scenery. Pulling into Kennet Creek around 3 o'clock I elected to stop for the night in a little family run caravan park knowing my chances of finding a legal free camp site along this stretch of road was unlikely. The office sported some wonderful photos of koalas and on enquiring we were given the likely location to find some both within the park and on the adjoining road. Since my expectations of actually seeing one were low we were therefore delighted to find numerous koalas snoozing in the gum trees. As we returned from our walk we saw a few King parrots and quietly snuck towards them to get a good photo knowing how shy and reclusive they usually are. Imagine our shock then when dozens suddenly flew out of the trees and swarmed around us landing on our arms and head.
Briefly we were amused by their antics and attempted to take a few photos until more arrived and we couldn't shake or push them off as they chewed our hair, clothes and my wedding ring. We dove for the relative protection of the base of the trees and were relieved when another group of people wandered down the road and the parrots realising we weren't going to feed them gave up and accosted them instead. It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie and reminded us why it's not a good idea for the tourists to feed the wildlife as they become dependent on people and can get very aggressive, even a normally placid species like the King Parrots. With an abundance of other small birds, the koalas and the added bonus of free unlimited Wi-Fi I would readily return to Kennet Creek for a few days stay.
1st April 2011
With schoolwork out of the way for the morning we decided to try our luck fishing in Kennet Creek. We could see schools of moderately sized fish swimming around. I suspected they might be bream so we added floats to our lines smooshed some stale bread onto the hook and cast in. We had a bit of fun feeding the fish and watching the water bubble and churn around our hooks as the fish delicately removed the bread from out hooks with nary a scratch. Somewhat relieved, as I actually thought our chances of catching something were pretty good this time, we lived up to the McEwan fishing reputation and came away empty handed. I don't know what I'll do if we ever catch something as I wouldn't know where to start scaling and gutting a fish. A little further along the road we stopped and wandered up to Carisbrook Falls. Here the water tumbles down a steep upended rock strata to the valley below.
Making Apollo Bay in time for lunch we stopped at the foreshore playground. After filling our tummies we visited the local shell museum which is a private collection from around the world. With time to kill we took the tourist drive into the Barham River area. This serendipitous drive through a combination of farmland and towering trees is one of the prettiest little valleys I've seen. Culminating in the Otways National Park after diminishing to little more than a single lane dirt road we found ourselves in the carpark for Marriners Falls. Having already sussed out a suitable campsite back along the road a bit I knew we had time to make the walk to the falls. Despite the obvious litter of fallen trees from, I suspect, the recent floods, the walk and moss covered falls were enchanting.
Returning to Paradise picnic area we set camp for the night amid the forest giants.
2nd April 2011
Being Saturday Jay was off the hook with his schoolwork so we headed back to Apollo Bay for the grocery shopping and the local market day. The stores don't have a fraction of the variety of stock we are spoilt with in Sydney but I've been able to get most things I need. The exception has been my favourite Sleepytime tea. The situation could get nasty when I run out in two days time!
This afternoon we were booked into a shipwreck discovery tour at Cape Otway lighthouse. The road in again was thick with koalas. In fact they are so numerous in this area that many of the trees have been denuded and have subsequently died.
Our tour guide was a retired lighthouse keeper who had worked in many of the lighthouses between Eden and Cape Otway during his working life. He and his wife had raised three boys in some very remote locations where the only way in and out was by ocean. The boys had all been home schooled using the distance education system. He had some great stories to tell about some of the 800 odd shipwrecks to have occured along the Victorian coast. Most were the result of poor navigation. After sailing for 3 months almost as far south as the Antarctic pack ice to catch the roaring 50's towards Australia the first land sighting was Cape Otway where the ships had to pass through "the eye of the needle" a 60 nautical mile wide stretch of Bass Strait between King Island and the rugged and trechourous Victorian coastline. Using only the ships chronometer and a sextant, an error of only one degree could put you 48kms off course and lead to disaster. Navigation was dependent on observing the angle between the sun and the horizon and the time difference from Greenwich Mean Time at midday to assert the longitude and lattitudal position of the vessel. Darkness, cloud cover or mist or for a few days could potentially result in disaster as the ships approached Australia. Add to this the clock's accuracy after three months tossing around on the high seas through equatorial heat and Antarctic cold. If it lost only a second a day it would be enough to send you on a collision course with the colossal rock formations of the Bay of Isles.
Dating back to 1848 the lighthouse at Cape Otway was the first to be built on the Australian mainland and was vital to the safe passage of ships heading for Port Melbourne. In one case a ship on seeing the lighthouse, and based on the ships navigated position, believed they were seeing the lighthouse on King Island and set a northerly course. Too late they discovered their mistake as they crashed into the cliffs along this dangerous stretch of coastline. Surprisingly despite the number of wrecks many avoided tragedy and were able to get crew and passengers safely ashore.
Our campsite tonight was Melba Gully where we bravely headed into the forest after dark to hunt for glow worms. We were rewarded with several gullies filled with the pinpoints of blue-green light looking like tiny constellations on the mossy rock walls.
3rd April 2011
Discovering new, to us at least, wildlife has been one of the highlights of travelling. Venturing back into the forest in daylight to see "Big Tree" we were somewhat disappointed to find that this 300 year old tree had only recently toppled over. Adding an Australian Ground thrush and Black Carnivorous snail to our list today assuaged our disappointment. With only 16 kms to travel today the plan was to get away early with the advantage that our body clocks hadn't adjusted to the end of daylight saving time and try and find a church in Port Campbell. What I hadn't realised was that the Twelve Apostles lay between us and our destination.
Spending most of the day exploring these amazing features as the Southern Ocean pounds into the limestone and sandstone cliffs meant we didn't get into town until about 3pm. Sadly the only church, a Baptist congregation, didn't have any evening services so we listened to some Chris Tomlin on the iPad and one of Pete's sermon from Norwest Anglican via the free Wi-Fi at the Port Campbell caravan park.
I found the story of the Loch Ard most interesting. After crashing into the cliffs and breaking up only two survivors made it into the safety of what is now Loch Ard Gorge, a narrow bay protected from the worst of the oceans fury by the horseshoe formation of the cliffs. A petite 5'5" 18 year old seaman, Tom Pearce made it to the beach from where he heard the cries of 18 year old Irish girl Eva. It took him more than an hour to get the 5'9" 12 stone girl dressed only in her nightgown into a cave. The next morning he scaled the cliffs and sought help from some farmers. Arriving back at the gorge the men described the beach as being 8 feet high all along with all manner of debris from the ship including a piano.
Only four other bodies were ever recovered, the captain and a crew member and two of Eva's family with life belts on floated into the gorge. Sadly Eva lost seven members of her family in the tragedy. Unknowingly they had passed her only remaining brother, who was estranged from the family, on the sea passage as he sailed home for Ireland. Being a gentleman and having inadvertently spent the night alone with a young lady in only her nightdress young Tom Pearce made a proposal of marriage which was declined.
4th April 2011
Today after stopping into The Arch, London Bridge and The Grotto we bid The Great Ocean Road farewell. We continued along the Shipwreck Coast.
The plan was to head to Portland for the night. Fortunately I'd picked up a brochure about Flagstaff Hill and as we passed the signs we decided to go into Warnambool and check it out. Once we were sure we could free camp in the area we opted to stay for the sound and light show after briefly looking around the recreation of a 19th century maritime village. I'm so glad we did. It looked at the shipwreck of the Loch Ard and brought it to life. By lamplight we strolled through the village as the tale began. Set with the village as a backdrop, fog and a water fountain in the lake became a screen for the video and laser show. The seats moved to simulate the feel of the rolling boat and rain poured down as the story of the ill-fated ship was retold. It really gave me a heightened awareness of the great courage and boldness of many of the 4th generation Australians ancestors most of whom would have made similar sea voyages to make their new life in Australia. I know my own ancestors came to Australia in the mid 1800's but I had never really appreciated just what this involved previously.
After the show we enjoyed a dessert of sticky date pudding and headed back to our free camp site at Bluehole overlooking the lagoon towards the ocean.
5th April 2011
One of the drawbacks of being in a different location each morning is that there's always something new and interesting to look at outside the schoolroom window. Some days, today was one of them, it seems to take Jayden forever to complete his work before we can continue on. It was back to Flagstaff Hill today to see the third survivor of the Loch Ard shipwreck, a metre high china peacock destined for the 1880 World Expo in Melbourne. She was salvaged by a local and never made the exhibition. In 1974 the family who had held her for so long decided to auction her off. The Warnambol historical society, local businesses and council got together and raised the $4000 to secure her. She was bundled into the back of a Ford station wagon on a mattress for the drive to her new residence at Flagstaff Hill. She is now worth a cool 4 million dollars! A few interesting facts about young Tom Pearce of whom I spoke before. The Loch Ard was the second shipwreck he had survived and he went on to survive two more, rising to the rank of captain. He eventually died at the relatively young age of 49 of heart failure. His two sons however weren't so lucky and both died at sea in shipwrecks.
Jayden enjoyed completing the Sea chest challenge around the village and getting his passport stamped at each location. I would highly recommend Flagstaff Hill to anyone traveling down this way. Tonight was again spent at Blue Hole.
6th April 2011
Once the schoolwork was completed this morning and I got a much needed haircut we grabbed some rolls from the bread shop and headed to the Warnambool Adventure Park. This is easily the best playground we've ever been to, and we've been to lots. Set alongside a lake there were flying foxes, a maze and two great playgrounds with an old style merry-go-round like there used to be in parks when I was a kid, a tyre merry-go-round and a few great slides.
We spent a good 4 hours playing and it was still hard to pull Jayden away at the end. Again plans can change at the drop of a hat when you're traveling. I was aiming for a campsite out of Portland but as we came into Port Fairy I saw a sign to Mt Eccles which WOK had recommended. I reset my compass for North and headed inland. It was getting late when we arrived at the Lake Surprise camping ground. Frankie had sprung a leak, fortunately just the hot water hose again, which I repaired with some difficulty. I just don't have the strength to tighten things enough. During a hunt around for firewood we found a koala up a tree. After dinner and some roasted marshmallows we had brush-tailed possums looking around for scraps.
7th April 2011
Today we set off for the hike around the Lava Canal. Mt Eccles is said to be the most recent area of volcanic activity in Australia. The first stop was into a cave created by the lava flow. It was quite spooky walking into it until a mob of noisy school children came in behind us. We freaked them out pretty good by suddenly appearing at the dark end of the cave and shiny our torches at them. The track followed the lava canals. You could see where the volcanic rock was built up on both sides of the path as the lava slowly channeled it's way towards the ocean. Passing the Natural Bridge we climbed Mt Eccles which formed as lava pellets spewed into the sky.
Finally the track passed Lake Surprise and we headed back to camp quite relieved that we hadn't seen any snakes as I'm sure it would have been a prime spot for them. We spent a relaxing afternoon playing Bey Blade and catching up on photos. We'd collected some firewood for Jay and this time he got the fire going all by himself with only two matches. The trouble was he was so excited about getting it blazing that he kept feeding it wood until the whole stack was gone. It was short lived but did produce some good coals for the perfect marshmallow roast. With noisy grunts and a lot of hullabaloo a big male koala strutted through our campsite as we sat by the fire. Being highly flammable due to the concentrated eucalyptus oils that collect on their heads where their tiny arms can't reach to clean, we were relieved that he didn't come too close to the fire.
8th April 2011
Finally making it into Portland our first stop was the visitors centre and maritime museum. A school group was coming in at the same time so we requested to tag along and were enthusiastically welcomed. We learned a lot about the area which was the earliest Victorian settlement. We were also surprised to learn that whilst the Southern Right Whales aren't due up from the Antarctic waters until next month the Blue Whales that spend the summer here had been sighted the previous day. Needless to say our next destination was to find a good place to whale spot. On the way to Cape Nelson Lighthouse we took in the Enchanted Forest. Taking our lunch onto the headland we settled in and stared at the sea. A gentleman next to us with a good pair of binoculars claimed he could see them spouting off in the distance where a flock of gannets were feeding. With the naked eye we could pick out the flock but didn't see any whales. As we strained we were able to see seals playing about the rocks below us and a pod of dolphins passed by. Next it was out to Cape Bridgewater. Unusually the sea was dead calm making our visit to the Blowhole a fizzer. The petrified forest was interesting although the interpretive signs weren't real clear about how it had formed.
A pleasant stride along the Great South West Walk sea cliffs, one of which is the highest sea cliff in Victoria at 130m, brought us to the seal colony. Although far below us it was fun watching them playing in the water, catching waves, jumping and somersaulting about. It had taken us much longer to walk to the colony than we'd expected and not looking forward to a 2 hour return trip Jay encouraged me to scab a lift back with a lovely Czech couple now living in Sydney with whom we'd shared our Bushman's insect repellant. They graciously agreed and so we were able to complete the walk to Shelley Beach and get driven back to Frankie. Tonight we are camped at the Blow Hole in the shadow of several giant wind farm turbines where we watched a lovely sunset over the sea and a trillion stars in a clear lightless sky dipping into the Southern Ocean. I love being able to lay in my bed and gaze at the stars just outside my window.
9th April 2011
We awoke to an amazing sunrise this morning overlooking the wind farm. It was finally time to bid The Great Ocean Road and The Shipwreck Coast farewell. We're bound for South Australia.
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