Great Ocean Road, Round 2

Journal Notes:

• Fisherman's Beach, Torquay
• ANZAC Memorial
• Split Point Lighthouse and the greedy magpie
• Lorne, Erskine Falls, and Teddy's Lookout
• Sheoak Falls
• Apollo Bay - good beer, pizza, and a pancake breakfast
• Mait's Rest
• Dropbears!
• Horden Vale
• Blown away at Castle Cove
• Free Bird!
• Gibson Steps
• Take only pictures.  Leave only footprints (12 Apostles)
• London Bridge, The Grotto, and Loch Ard Gorge

Pictures:

Fisherman's Beach in Torquay

Analemmic sundial on Fisherman's Beach

Which one's the minute hand?

Point Danger

ANZAC Memorial - Point Danger

Bell's Beach

Remember that children's TV show, Round The Twist?  Yeah, me neither.
But if you did, you'd probably recognize Split Point Lighthouse

At the Swing Bridge in Lorne

Swing Bridge - Lorne

Big hollow tree stump at Erskine Falls

Erskine Falls

... so the mushroom says, "Why don't you like me?  I'm a fun guy."

This was a Nissan Patrol

Teddy's Lookout - Lorne

The perfect pancake (the one on top)

Myrtle beech roots at Mait's Rest, in the Otways

Tree-fern

Baby tree-fern

Myrtle beech

Fungus growing on a log

We saw some dropbears on the road to Cape Otway lighthouse

About two seconds later, he pounced on a backpacker

The two in this picture were swaying wildly in the breeze

Castle Cove, near Glenaire
The shape of the rocks channeled the wind into a really powerful jet here.
We had fun trying to open the doors on the left-hand side of the car.

This is either Castle Cove or Gibson Steps.  I'm not sure which

At the foot of Gibson Steps

Good on ya, Aldo

At Twelve Apostles.
The weather turned really bad here, so I only ended up with this picture this time around.

The Grotto
Something really cool happened here on the way back to the car.
Check the videos below

Loch Ard Gorge

On 1 June, 1878, the Loch Ard crashed here, on what has become known as "Shipwreck Coast".
She was lost with over 50 souls on board.  There were only two survivors.

Compare with the picture below

Shipwreck Coast

Mutton Bird Island, where the Loch Ard ran aground

Sea foam

Left to right:
Michaela, Aldo, Marielle, and Angela

This looks like desert scrub.
What's it doing on Shipwreck Coast?

On the way back we saw some cool rays of sunlight

Videos:

Dropbear

London Bridge

That's not snow

Don't put this stuff in your car

This past weekend, my roommates and I drove out along the Great Ocean Road.  My housemate, Aldo, had bought a car a couple weeks ago, and it was time to put it to the test and see if he'd bought a gem or a lemon.

Verdict?  Gem.

We (Aldo, Angela, Marelle, and I) left Saturday morning after Angela got off work, picking up Michaela on the way out of town.  We got into Torquay around 11:00 AM and hit up the visitor center for some tourist info.  The ladies we talked to were really nice and helpful, and loaded us up with maps and brochures, marking the "must-see" locations on the maps and crossing out stuff that was out-of season.

We started off at Fisherman's Beach in Torquay, or at least we would have if our navigator hadn't screwed up and got us on the gravel part of the esplanade (my bad!).  At the group's insistence, Aldo turned the car around and we found the beach we were looking for.  Aldo took some really nice photos with his car, and we all checked out the analemmic sundial.  It's made of tiles laid out on the ground in aboriginal-themed art, with an eagle in the center.  You stand in a certain spot on the eagle (depending on what month of the year it is) and your body acts as the gnomon.

From Fisherman's Beach, we drove down to Point Danger and checked out the ANZAC memorial there.  ANZAC is the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.  Although the three ANZACs were only active during WWI, ANZAC appears to have become somewhat of an umbrella term for military servicemen from Australia and New Zealand (especially when it comes to memorials and monuments).  Here were plaques commemorating those who served in WWII and Korea, a humbling sight to see.  Leaving Torquay, we drove a little ways down to Bell's Beach.  There were some surfers catching waves, and a beautiful shore with brown and black sand.

After Torquay and Bell's Beach, we drove down to Airey's Inlet and had lunch at Split Point Lighthouse.  Had I been born a few years earlier, I might have recognized it from the children's show Round the Twist, which (according to Wikipedia) aired briefly on Fox Kids in the US in 1997.  There, we discovered that the lettuce and cheese, which had been so carefully packaged up the night before in preparation for our trip, had been left at home, so Aldo and Angela drove around in search of a grocery store while Marielle, Michalea, and I staked our claim on a picnic table and munched on little chili-and-lime-flavored corn chip thingies.

Twenty minutes later, our friends returned to a parking lot that was so full, people were forced to park in the "no parking" area, with fresh supplies, and we all sat down and had ham wraps (except for Marielle, who had hers on bread).  We got pestered by a magpie, eager for a free meal, so Aldo had to chase it off again and again.

After lunch, we drove down to Lorne and crossed the swinging bridge there, just for fun and a few pictures.  There, we stopped at the information center and got more maps and tourist guides, and drove up to the golf club to try and see some kangaroos; the lady in Torquay had told us it was a popular spot, and it must have been, because there were signs up all over the place warning tourists to stay off the course if they were kangaroo watching.  We saw a lot of golfers, but no roos, and we soon decided to pay a visit to Erskine Falls and Teddy's Lookout.

We probably spent close to an hour at Erskine Falls alone.  Aldo and Michaela set up their tripods at the  upper lookout and got some great photographs, while I wandered down the long, muddy flight of steps to the bottom of the falls.  I crossed the creek and wandered down a bit, and it wasn't too long before a middle-aged Australian couple joined me.  I didn't pay them too much attention until the man's wife slipped and fell on the rocks next to me.  We had her soak her ankle in the frigid stream, but it still swelled up a good bit by the time her husband and I got her back across the creek.  Let that be a lesson - don't go creek jumping in flip-flops.  They thanked me and said she could get up the steps without my help (there was a good handrail all the way up), and my group passed them as we left for Teddy's Lookout.  It was cold and windy at Teddy's Lookout, so we only spent about twenty minutes there, but we got some pretty nice pictures all the same.

We made a quick stop at Sheoak falls and took some more pictures.  It was a nice walk to the falls, although the steps were quite tall, especially for Angela.  We watched a pair of ducks swimming around the pool at the bottom of the falls, quacking and playing in the water.

Arriving at Apollo Bay, we checked into Surfside Hostel, where the door scraped the floor as it opened and closed, nor would it lock when shut.  We were concerned about this until we realized that the only things we'd brought in were our clothes and toiletries.  Besides, it was a small place and there weren't many people staying there.

We drove back into town and had dinner at George's - two extra large pizzas, which we split amongst the five of us.  After a long day of sightseeing, they definitely hit the spot.  I hadn't had a chance to pick up any drinks before I left, so I stopped at the hotel and bottle shop next door.  The girl behind the bar was really nice (whoever you are, thank you!) - she took me around behind the bar so I wouldn't have to walk back outside in the cold, and helped me pick out my beer - a mixed six pack of Red Ale and Otway Ale from a local microbrewery called Prickly Moses.

We headed back to the hostel and the place had livened up.  We met a group of three guys who'd all known each other in the UK - one was from there, one from New Zealand, and another from Melbourne.  They invited us to play a couple drinking games with them.  We all had fun (even Michaela, who doesn't drink) while Aldo chatted it up with an Italian couple who were also staying at the hostel.  Aldo is only 24 years old, yet he already speaks four languages.

I woke up cold the next morning, and was pleased to find a heat lamp in the hostel's shower.  Even after downing a six-pack the night before, I somehow managed to avoid a hangover.  The girls cooked pancakes for breakfast while Aldo and I went into town to gas up the car and get groceries.  At the Shell station, I saw my dream car for Australia - a beat-up 1988 Nissan Patrol, with 24" mud tires and a diesel engine.  It's a shame it wasn't for sale.  I'd have snatched it up in a heartbeat.

Returning to the hostel, we had a big ol' Sunday pancake breakfast that couldn't be beat, packed up the car again, checked out and hit the road.  Our first stop was Mait's Rest, named after forestry patrol officer Maitland Bryant, who used to stop and water his horse near the present walking trail on his regular route.  It was a thirty minute walk along a nicely maintained path through dense rainforest.  There were big fern trees and even bigger myrtle beech trees - some well over a hundred feet tall.

Leaving Mait's Rest, we traveled down the Great Ocean Road a little ways until we turned off for Cape Otway lighthouse, dodging potholes along the windy country road.  Cresting a hill, we noticed a couple cars stopped at the bottom, with people standing around, looking up into the trees and taking pictures.  We knew it could only mean one thing - wild koalas!  We stayed a good half hour taking pictures, and I got a video of one climbing down its tree, and of two more at the edge of a couple big limbs, swaying in the breeze while they munched on eucalyptus leaves.

Eventually, we made it to the lighthouse parking lot and gift shop, to discover they were charging $18.50 per person to see it (even from the outside).  Since none of us wanted to spend that kind of money, we bought a couple souvenirs from the gift shop and headed back up the way we came, dodging more potholes on the other side of the road.  There were even more people stopped at the koalas than when we'd left.

While we were looking at the maps at the lighthouse parking lot, Aldo and I got this great idea that we should check out Lake Horden and Lake Craven.  We first missed the turn for Horden Vale road and had to turn around when we found a safe spot (there wasn't much traffic here, thankfully).  The second attempt, we found the road and headed down a long drive through a beautiful valley.  I don't know how to describe it, except to say that from now on, when I imagine what it would be like to drive through the Scottish highlands, the picture that forms in my mind will be of Horden Vale.

We never did see those lakes (though we did pass along some wetlands).  Instead, we turned at a three-way intersection and crossed the Aire river, drove past a few camp sites, and decided we were getting a bit more lost than we would have liked, so we turned on the GPS and decided that we should have stayed on the main road instead of crossing the river.  However, when we got back across, there was a big sign going down that way that said not to proceed unless we were in a four-wheel-drive.  The sign also mentioned something about driving on the beach being prohibited, which we didn't have to worry about too much because Aldo's little car didn't have the necessary ground clearance to get us down that way (in his defense, it is an all-wheel-drive car, so if traction was the only issue, we'd have been fine).  So we doubled back and drove all the way back up to where we'd turned off the Great Ocean Road.

We drove on past Glenaire to Castle Cove, where we stopped for another quick walk to the cliffs and more pictures of the Bass Strait.  The wind was blowing in pretty hard from the sea, and the shape of the cove channeled it into a concentrated stream directed right at the passenger side of the car.  Opening the doors on that side was quite a challenge, and I think the girls ended up all getting out on the driver side.  We nearly got blown away standing in front of the car to take pictures.  It was like being a news reporter trying to report on a hurricane, only without all the rain and Volvos flying around.

Leaving Castle Cove, we drove on up quite a ways, and somewhere between there and Princetown we turned off to find a place to answer the call of nature.  Well, we didn't find a proper facility, but we did spook a wallaby that was sitting on the road.  I don't know that anyone had their camera ready in time to get a picture of it, but we all saw it.  It was pretty exciting, especially for Marielle, who hadn't seen anything like that in the wild before.

There wasn't much else exciting going on until we got to Twelve Apostles and Port Campbell National Park.  We'd been listening to classic rock on Aldo's iPod most of the day, and I was quite surprised when nobody recognized Free Bird, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, for that matter.  In the South, they're so well associated with the "legends" of classic rock, it never really occurred to me that they might not have gained much international acclaim.

The weather started getting pretty nasty, but we braved it and stopped at Gibson Steps, which is a staircase hewn from the living rock of the limestone cliffs.  We walked around on the beach for a bit and saw some fossils in the making - shells and whatnot slowly collecting piles of sand atop them, to disappear for a few million years.  The wind was blowing pretty fiercely from the Bass Strait, then turning perpendicular when it hit the cliffs.  My face stung as it was pelted by invisible grains of sand.

From Gibson Steps, we quickly made our way to Twelve Apostles, where the weather turned even nastier.  There was a pretty good sized crowd there, and as everyone else was going down to the lookout to get their pictures, I watched as the wind started to carry off a couple half-empty coffee cups, which some negligent jackass had left along the path.  I picked them up and went back to find a trash can, got hot chocolate all over my hands in the process, and came back just in time for the rain to come blowing in, meeting my friends as they ran towards the visitor center, back the way I'd just came.  I only got one picture at Twelve Apostles this time.  Damn tourists.

After Twelve Apostles, we drove up a little further to London Bridge (which I'm pretty sure is the same thing as The Arch, just seen from a different vantage point).  The rest of the group stayed in the car while Michaela and I went up to take our shots.  It was cold, and the wind was blowing like hell, but it had this great effect on the waves, rising as they passed through the arch, then fanning back out as they left it.  It was so cool that when we went back to the car and told everyone, they all had to run out and take pictures for themselves, then come back to the car and talk about how awesome it was.

Following London Bridge, we went up to the Grotto for some more pictures.  Walking back to the car, we noticed something peculiar floating in the air.  First, I thought it was feathers, like maybe some poor seagull had been driven into the cliff face, but then someone pointed out that it was dissolving when it hit the ground.  Seafoam!  We stood there for a little while longer and watched as big swarms of it blew up and over the cliffs, like snow in a blizzard.

Leaving the Grotto, we headed back down to Loch Ard Gorge, which is named after the Loch Ard, a passenger ship which crashed and sank on Mutton Bird Island (next to the gorge).  She had over 50 souls on board when she sank.  There were only two survivors.

At Loch Ard Gorge, we saw more foam blowing up over the cliffs, and we also had the opportunity to see how this peculiar phenomenon was made to occur.  High winds churned up the waves, creating the foam and blowing it towards the cliffs.  As the gap in the rocks narrowed, the waves bounced back, pushing the foam back away from the cliff until it reached a point of equilibrium, keeping the foam contained maybe 20 or 30 yards from the mouth of the cave.  It just stayed there and built up, unable to go anywhere until a big gust of wind came in and caught some of it, taking it up and blowing it over the top of the cliff.

And that's pretty much how our trip ended.  We were all really tired after our big adventure, so there wasn't much chatting on the way home. We dropped Michaela off at her house and made it to McDonald's just in time to get some burgers before they closed, then headed home and went straight to bed.

The Serious Lamb Burger is seriously good.  Shame we can't get it in the States.