The first half of our week on the Great Ocean Road and around Melbourne, starting with a delayed flight down stranding us in the airport until morning, but also fern filled rainforests, spectacular coastlines and some close encounters with snakes!
Day 28 – Geelong and Aboriginal cuisine
The plane landed at about 12.45am. By the time we’d got off and collected our bags it was well past 1. It was cold! Tried calling the car rental company (Bargain Car Rental) to come and get us with no luck. No-one answered. We took shelter in the Hertz hut whilst we tried to contact them and then the booking company to see what our options were. Could we hire a car with someone else and get a refund on the basis that we couldn’t get our car? Would our insurance pay for a hotel or taxi’s? Hertz only had cars for 700AUD for the 6 days so that was a no (we’d paid 200AUD in contrast!) We tried the hotels at the terminal but, whilst they offered a good discount for a late night walk in, they were still over £120. Taxi’s to get to our accommodation (Uber) were £75 each way. In the end it was the kids that voted to sleep on the floor in the airport – they thought that sounded like fun! None of us had slept in an airport before so we weren’t really sure what to expect…
The domestic departures was the closest terminal entrance so we headed in and decided to look upstairs. Downstairs was the massive, hard floored check in hall. Upstairs we found everyone else with the same idea as us so we knew we’d come to the right place. A corridor with carpet, some chairs and sections of blank wall where we could set up camp. With our silk sleep bags liners, eye masks and travel pillows we were actually not that uncomfy on the floor and may have actually got some reasonable sleep were it not for the fact that it was 2.30am by the time we laid down and the 6am flight people started arriving and passing noisily from about 4…
By 6 it was pretty noisy so we had an apple followed by McDonalds for breakfast whilst we waited for the car rental company to open at 8am. The kids concluded that sleeping in the airport was worth it as they got McDonald’s! Easy to please!
Bargain cars picked up immediately, directed us to the regular buses out and we arrived at the car lot shortly after. Then things got a little silly again. Bargain cars outsource so the guys we were taken to worked for another company. The person who’d dropped off the car hadn’t noted the parking space so the first job was to find the car in their lot… luckily it’s tiny and yellow so sticks out! The obvious name for our cheerful little car was Sunny, and it stuck.
Then the seat belt plugs (is that the right name??) for the back seats were missing. Cue a few minutes of a couple of men rummaging around in the back of the car trying to find them. And then it had no screenwash so we had to go to the actual Bargain office to get it filled up and ask for a refund of our late pick up fee seeing as they weren’t about for a late pick up. They initially said it was our fault for not calling them to say that the flight was delayed, but actually their office was closed before we knew the flight was delayed so we had no way to tell them. They didn’t have much argument to that!
Finally on the road we headed down towards our home in Werribee – The Happy Bear Inn. We were greeted by the lovely Jim who showed us around. It’s a shared accommodation place with rented rooms and shared living spaces. The whole place is from the 60’s though and it was dark and freezing. You know when you walk into a house and get a bad vibe? I just didn’t like it in there. The bedroom was a little better luckily and there were plenty of blankets for the night.
We were tired but staying in seemed a shame, and it wasn’t exactly cosy. The plan had been to head down to Lake Connewarre Wildlife Reserve for a walk but that didn’t seem likely to be met with joy from any of us after a night of very little sleep. We decided to head out to the aboriginal centre where there were rumours of aboriginal style breakfasts and then see how we felt.
Driving south from Werribee through the towns and surrounding farmland it almost felt like we’d gone home. At times we were driving down busy dual carriageways, flanked with green rolling hills and patchwork fields.
It also felt like spring for the first time, with yellow flowers and fields of yellow rape flowers. Lush green grass everywhere. Of course there are differences; most of it is flatter, the fields are generally much larger and the Eucalyptus trees have their leaves and an odd coppery sheen at this time of year, whilst the deciduous trees are yet to leaf, but pretty similar in a photo.
The Narana Aboriginal Centre is a small centre which is essentially a gift shop, an art gallery, a cultural centre (showing original items such as didgeridoos), a playground, a wildlife garden with some tame wallabies and kangaroo and an excellent café serving an aboriginal inspired menu for a very reasonable price. All you need for a couple of lovely hours as a family :).
We headed straight for the café as we were flagging – our McDonald’s, whilst yummy, was not sustaining and our driver was feeing lightheaded. Not good. We chose the Aboriginal style breakfast, the australian meats sharing platter and a kangaroo pie (chased up with a bowl of chips for good measure), washed down with a banana smoothie. The kitchen here tries to replicate some of the bush fare that the aboriginal people used to eat – which was made up of over 500 ingredients. They use traditional meats that would have been available (emu, crocodile and kangaroo) combined with bush spices and vegetables.
It was as good as it looked! Everything tasted very homemade and simple but with delicious flavours. Kangaroo was voted as the favourite meat of the three – Evie loved the kangaroo pie. But the bread was also really nice, as were the bean hummous, tomato salsa and yoghurt.
After filling ourselves up we wandered out into the wallaby enclosure, where a lovely lady shared her wallaby food with the kids. Aiden was straight in to feed them but Evie was reluctant, convinced that she would be hurt in some way. As usual she overthought it and got more and more worked up, annoyed with herself for not being able to do it even though she wants to. I know the feeling. After much coaxing and in the end sort of forcing her arm with her blessing she had a kangaroo eating out of her palm and of course loved it. Smiles all round.
We also nailed a photo with the ‘watch out for kangaroos’ signs which are all over the roads and an actual kangaroo. Haha.
Then we wandered into the cultural centre to look at the displays and watch a video of someone playing the didgeridoo VERY well with animal imitation noises at the same time as making the standard noise. How do they do that!? Impressive!
On the side there’s a small art gallery displaying local aboriginal artists work which is for sale. We watched a video of someone painting in this style and picked our favourites. Interestingly, we all picked something different, although there was some overlap between second favourites.
We’d spent quite a few hours here by now but couldn’t leave without trying the rather amazing looking cheesecake, our excuse being that we were not likely to get to try one made with wattleseed ever again. It was also superb. Altogether the best meal we’ve had anywhere in Australia so far.
With the day ebbing away we ditched the longer walk (think we were kidding ourselves that that would ever happen!) and decided to head home, calling at a playground and a waterfall on route. I’d read good things about the playground on the waterfront in Geelong, but it was not great at all. The kids were bored within 5 minutes and ended up playing with an ant trail across the path for half an hour whilst Chris tried to have a nap in the car!
On to the Buckley Waterfalls which was very pleasant. More of a cascade than falls, but a nice simple walk down to the viewing area which we extended by heading along the river for a bit. Very relaxing and the chance to get moving a little bit.
Back to the cold house where we spent the evening on Skype calls home before wrapping up for bed.
Bird species seen: 148
Day 29 – Starting out on the Great Ocean Road
We were a bit slow up this morning but packed and got out of the cold, dark house as quick as possible. The sun was shining and the Great Ocean Road was calling.
The route took us back down south until we hit the coast at Torquay. The infamous Bells Beach is just down the road and the whole area is massive for surfing so we figured it would be wrong to drive past the Australian Museum of Surfing. We weren’t sure if it would be of much interest as neither of us are surfers (although like most people we’d love to be able to – something to pick up later in life perhaps…) but it was actually very interesting to read about how it developed from massive boards carved from trees by the Hawaiian’s to the high tech international sport it is today. The kids were happy looking at all the old boards they have there and looking at the art boards which are letters written by ‘Maurice’, a kid who has run away from home to surf, to his parents and their responses. The parents themselves are actually very supportive as they are surfer dudes too. Very funny to read – see if you can zoom in on them. Not very flattering to surfers though!
There’s also a theatre showing some of the history and lots of surfing footage – impressive stuff! Whilst we were learning about all this the kids were playing in their kinetic sand sandpit. I think they were in there for over an hour!
After this we had to head over to the iconic beach, but it started to rain pretty hard so we sat in the car watching the few surfers out on the beach whilst we ate our sandwiches. So much for our picnic lunch on the coast!
Our next stop was the Chocolaterie nearby. They lure you in with the promise of free chocolate and that you can see into the factory. Really it’s just a massive chocolate shop (they have the ‘Great Wall of Chocolate’ and a café selling deliciously decadent things. It was very good chocolate though, so after eating our free sample we ordered some fruit waffles, a snickers bar cheescake and a hot chocolate. All of which come with a cup of melted chocolate to drink or smother your desert with. Aiden’s face says it all…
It wasn’t cheap but it was very worth it! Such good chocolate – Evie was in heaven! We left feeling very sick but very happy. But we definitely needed to fit some sort of walk into the day in between the rain showers now! Parking up part way down the Point Roadknight headland we walked down to the beach and along to the rocky head. We got caught in a sharp shower at the end so our picture wasn’t quite what we were after – do they look like they’re having fun?
I’ll be honest, I think we have some pretty awesome coastline in England so I wasn’t sure what could be so great about ‘The Great Ocean Road’. Initially it wasn’t super special. It was nice, but from the road you couldn’t see much. After Airey’s Inlet it really picked up though as the wooded slopes drop down into the ocean in rocky inlets and sandy coves. The road winds around the base so from the passenger side I got a great view. We stopped a few times along this section to explore some of the coves or check out the viewpoints, from which you could see gannets diving from height into the ocean for fish. We stopped to see what the ‘historic site’ on the signpost was – turns out it’s a wreck site with a silly story. The W.B. Godfrey wrecked in 1891. No one died thankfully, however over the next few years there were numerous salvage attempts. The first boat capsized and two men died. A second salvage boat tried, capsized and the man who couldn’t swim (!) drowned. A third boat tried, also capsized and when one of the men was in trouble, the captain, who also couldn’t swim, tried to save him and failed so they both died! Why can’t sailors swim!? And what was the valuable cargo risking life and limb for? Wood. Lots and lots of wood! Unbelievable. It’s still down there somewhere. We couldn’t resist descending onto the beach below to look in the rockpools and play with massive seaweeds.
Arrived at our next holiday park in the dark and discovered we’ve lost one of the travel pillows. Can’t believe we’ve lost something else! Somewhere between waking up at the airport and getting in the new car we seem to have lost it. Getting very annoyed with us being so careless, although as Chris points out, we are moving around a lot, with a lot of stuff so some of it is bound to go missing. I’m not sure how we replace all this stuff on the road though… we need that travel pillow and it’s not very sustainable to go around the world leaving a trail of things behind us!
I was probably also angry because our accommodation for the night is one of the most expensive we will pay for all year and yet it’s a cabin which doesn’t even come with bedding and towels and the heater wasn’t working when we got in. It’s freezing! It’s sort of working now so I’m a little less grumpy…
Bird species seen: 151
Day 30 – Cape Otway and Apollo Bay
We all slept in this morning till nearly 8 (which is unheard of for Chris and Aiden!) and headed out down the Great Ocean Road a little way to get to the Cape. Once out of Apollo Bay the road turns inland through the rolling green foothills of the Otway Range before giving way to thick forest carpeted with bracken.
As we headed down the road to the tip of the Cape we saw people standing in the road, looking up with cameras. Koala’s! There was a handy parking area just past them so we pulled up to take a look. Not only were there koala’s here, there was a mother and baby and she was feeding and slightly further down a large male was moving around. And another one sleeping in a tree across the road. There could have been more but we had no need to look with these guys giving us such a great show! Based on what Daisy Hill had said this was a very lucky sighting. I’m not sure who saw them first, whether it was this group of people, but before we left more cars had also stopped to see what we’d seen and so the information passed on.
We took our little Kia Picanto down the dirt roads to the Parker Hill campsite where the Great Ocean Walk passes through and the Springybark trail also ends. The sun had been shining the whole drive down but the clouds gave us a little wetting as we got out of the car. With the chilly wind and the showers from the day before we had our waterproofs so this didn’t bother us. The path down along the coast in sun through stunted forests and thickets was lovely.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones to think so as we saw two snakes at the side of the path. Both times the kids walked past without noticing and it was Chris who spotted them. They slithered away when we stopped to look (from a respectable distance). Which is good, because when we looked them up later they were a Tiger Snake and a Lowland Copperhead, both of which are highly venomous – eek!
At the half way point the Springybark trail leaves to take you back to the campsite so we took the opportunity to head down to the beach.
Aiden found some massive cuttlefish and I found some sponge. It was all fun until Evie slipped on some rocks and landed right on her bum, slipping down the rock. Literally at that moment the heavens opened and the stiff breeze drove the rain at us. Thanks Mother Nature – really helpful. Once Evie had calmed down we tried to usher her off the beach quickly to some shelter, which we of course reached just as the rain stopped. Typical! We just about made it through our sandwiches before a more constant drizzle set in for the majority of our walk back. Uphill. With a child with a sore bum.
Very reminiscent of English weather in April!
Our next stop was the lighthouse just up the road. It’s the oldest one on mainland Australia and you can have a tour to the top. There’s also the telegraph museum and a WWII bunker. For $50 for a family to enter (about £28) we decided to give it a miss and come back home. We’re tired out!
We stopped in Apollo Bay to have a look at one of the little cinema cabins which we keep seeing along the coast. Turns out each is showing a 10 minute documentary about its section of the Great Ocean Road as it is 100 years since the road construction was started. Unfortunately, this is the last one and we’d driven past the others. The kids played in the playground next door whilst we learned a little about the road. It was constructed when the servicemen came back from WWII and the state decided to try to unite some of the coastal towns (including Apollo Bay), which until then could largely be approached only by sea. For the amazing section between Lorne and Apollo Bay the servicemen were lowered down the steep hillsides on ropes with a pickaxe. When they were at the determined level for the road, they hacked footholds for themselves and then started picking away at the rocks, continuing until they had cut out the road. That would have taken a long time!
Back to the cabin for a chilled afternoon catching up with journals, playing in the playpark and watching the Simpsons Movie on a hired DVD. We were in for a busy day tomorrow so an early night for all!
Bird species seen: 154
Day 31 – Otway National Park and the Twelve Apostles
Having packed up the night before we were up and out before 9 (we are much better at all this now anyway). Our plans to head up to the lookout point were quickly scrapped when we looked out the window at the steady drizzle.
We headed on for our first stop instead, passing up through the hills into the rainforested hills of the Otway Range. Huge, straight trunked eucalyptus mixed with dinosaur era style fern trees made for an odd mix. As we drove further in the cloud was around us and we were feeling less and less convinced about our day of walking…
Things seemed to be brightening up as we approached Triplet and Little Aire Falls and we had to stop for a kangaroo and then a wallaby sat besides the road. Then there were Pink Robins everywhere. Cute little birds in black with bright pink breasts.
We pulled into the totally empty car park just as the sun burst through. Perfect. It was still chilly heading out down the trails but we warmed quickly whilst walking through glistening gullies, sheltered from the odd shower by the enormous trees. At times the scenery in this wet but cool rainforest resembled something out of a dinosaur film, with fern trees dripping water on the mossy ground.
Our route was an out and back to the Little Aire Falls (about 6km) in total on a very pleasant trail to some pretty falls.
After returning to the car we headed back to the Great Ocean Road (eating our sandwiches as we went – we were on a tight schedule today!) and our next stop at Melba Gully. I was bigging this one up as the kids were not that keen to go and walk through more rainforest, but there’s the ‘Big Tree’ here which has a girth of 27m. That’s a big tree right! As we walked the short 1km trail to the little falls and the ‘Big Tree’ we were helping the kids to understand how big this tree would be – 16 daddies holding hands in a circle. They were pretty excited as we approached. What the signs don’t tell you at the top and online is that it actually fell over a few years ago and now all you can see is the end of the stump!
Are you impressed? We weren’t. It wasn’t even a big stump! We thought this one about 20 metres further on was much more impressive…
The trip wasn’t totally wasted. We saw another new sign and of course had to imitate. The others hopped all down the not particularly slippery slope like this but it wasn’t really a broken toe kind of activity. Meant I got to take pics though…
Back in the car again to rejoin the coast and check out the Twelve Apostles area. This stretch of coast is really famous but as we approached we were writing off any chances of great Instagram shots – heavy rain!
It was still raining as we pulled up in a ridiculously busy car park. Day trippers and coach tours from Melbourne – yay. After seeing hardly anyone else all day it was a bit of a shock to be surrounded by so many people! It was pretty windy too but we wrapped up and headed out amongst the throngs of (mainly) Chinese people. Helicopters fly overhead constantly, taking those with more money than us for a close up aerial view of the coast.
There is a 500m trail down to the coast to a couple of lookout points over the stacks in the sea. Pretty impressive stacks, and a lovely rugged coastline. The rain had all but stopped so we managed a couple of shots. Chris was surprisingly even more bothered by the tourists than me (and admitted he realised how silly it was to be irritated by people jostling for the best photo spots when he was doing it himself!) so we didn’t stay long. We grabbed a few quick snacks from the kiosk here, including a delicious curry pie.
A couple of minutes further down the road is Loch Ard Gorge. Another busy car park and a lot of people walking out to the viewpoint of the gorge and down the steps to the beach below. We followed one of the other trails to the left, which was still pretty busy to start the ‘Shipwreck story’. As you pass along here boards tell the tale of one of the more famous of the many shipwrecks which occurred here outside the gorge. The story takes you on the trails to the right of the gorge, where there is a graveyard with the many who died (52 died, 2 survived) on that night.
The route takes you through the story of the Loch Ard, a fancy passenger ship from Gravesend in England, carrying 17 passengers, including the majority of one wealthy family and 37 crew. After a three month voyage, they came upon the shore in the mist and when it lifted they were too close to shore and hit an island. Only two survived, a crewman and one of the daughters of the wealthy family. The press tried to make a big thing of it and everyone hoped they’d get together but they’d get together, but it wasn’t to be. She headed home to England, he to Ireland. They actually both ended up settled close to each other in England, but never saw each other again.
This part of the coast is called Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast as it claimed so many boats on their way to the east coast of Australia from Europe.
The trails continue down the coast for another couple of km, where there were blissfully few people. It had turned into a lovely relaxing, sunny afternoon.
Just time in our action packed day for a quick fish and chips dinner at Port Campbell, with three types of fish which we’d never heard of before. Unfortunately, they were all wrapped up together so we have no idea which one was which in case we have it again. Ah well. I tend to have very cheap tastes so I’m going to assume my favourite was the Butterfish, which was the cheapest!
On to London Bridge, which is an arch and, more importantly, a nesting place for Little Penguins. These tiny penguins come to shore after sunset after a day of feeding in the ocean to hide in their burrows overnight. After enjoying the sunset over the sea, listening to the waves break on the shore we waited patiently for them to come in. About 25 minutes later, as the light was seriously fading, about 15-20 tiny blobs were washed up on the shoreline, stood up and started running for the shore. We presume they were running anyway, they were moving very slowly, but penguins aren’t known for their speed.
Arriving at our farm stay in the dark, we were greeted by our hosts who immediately took us into their lounge to introduce us to their couple of hour old lamb which had been rejected by its mum and was now being handfed. It was very cute and reminded me of some lovely holidays I had as a child in Wallover Barton in Devon, where we stayed on a farm and my sister and I got to go and feed the orphaned lambs a couple of times a day – child heaven! Our two were looking forward to helping feed it over the coming days.
Very much a day of two halves, with the morning feeling cold and damp in a rainforest with no-one around for miles, and the afternoon on a sunny coast surrounded by Chinese tourists! We’ve covered well over 10km and the kids are now passed out. Think I might join them…
Bird species seen: 159
Continue reading for the second half of our Great Ocean Road adventure, or go back to recap on our travels up to Townsville on the east coast of Australia…