Port Campbell to Melbourne

Wednesday 5th October
For anybody who has been following this every day, I have finally added the baby kangaroo pictures in the blog entitled 'Cooper Pedy to Quorn' and the iPhone pictures in the blog entitled 'Quorn'.

We didn't have too early a start today, we left after breakfast at 7.30 and set off for the Gibson Steps for an alternative view of the 12 Apostles. There are steps right down the cliffs to the beach.

Then we headed inland for the town of Otway. We climbed into the Otway range of mountains, and drove through rolling hills not entirely unlike the South Downs. There were lots of dairy farms, and everything was very green and fertile.

This was not surprising because apparently the area has a very high rainfall. Our destination was the Otway Fly - a wonderful treetop walk in an area of temperate rainforest.

This was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. The whole forest is lush, full of tree ferns and shrubs at a low level, then much taller trees, and some forest giants. The tallest trees are the Mountain Ash, which can grow to 140 metres but in this forest, which has suffered numerous fires, there probably aren't many over 50 metres. Another forest giant is the Blackwood, a type of Acacia. We first walked on a long path through the forest, descending down into the valley.

Then we entered the walkway, gradually climbing again until we were 25 metres above the forest floor. The forest giants are still above, but the walkway is above many other trees. It is interesting to be that high in the trees, a view you don't usually see.

Towards the end of the walkway, there is a tower which takes you right up to the canopy, so you can see the tops of the forest giants, though they still tower above you.

The tower sways along with the trees, and you can feel it move whenever somebody starts climbing up the spiral stairway. I didn't stay long - I felt quite insecure. There was also a cantilever walkway, which swayed along with the trees. Some people liked making it sway but I didn't, we were still high above the forest floor. The end of the walkway descended gently to the forest floor, near a little stream that ran along the valley and which we had been able to hear but not see when we were up on the walkway.

Then it was a long steep climb back out of the valley and back to the visitor centre where the walk had started. Paul and I really enjoyed it, we loved looking at the different plants, trees and lichens, and listening to the sounds of birds and frogs. We could have stayed much longer, but it was time for the tour to depart.

We weren't finished with the temperate rainforest though, we had a very scenic drive through the Otway National Park, a wonderful twisting road through the Otway range with superb views down over the valleys. Unfortunately, there were no stopping places, so photographs were not a success.

We drove back down to the coast and had our lunch in a place called Apollo Bay. East of Apollo bay, there are black volcanic cliffs, so the rest of the drive along the Great Ocean Road was very scenic. Again, there was no stopping allowed, and our bus was on the inside lane, and the viewpoints were on the outside lane. Vehicles are not allowed to cross to the other lane to access the viewpoints - only vehicles coming from Melbourne can stop to appreciate the views.

As we drove through some of the tall trees lining part of the road, we noticed that some were quite bare of leaves; apparently, the leaves have all been eaten by koalas, and we did spot a couple of koalas in the trees.

There are small villages all along the coast road, mostly with British names. We noticed one called Wye River, which had a nice beach, and we stopped to take photographs at one called Cumberland River, also with a nice little beach

and made another stop in a very smart and pricey one called Lorne.

We also stopped at Torquay, apparently the surfing Mecca, to look in some rather disappointing discount shops. Then it was on to Melbourne, where our driver battled the traffic for almost an hour and a half to get us to our hotel. We said farewell to everybody else on the bus, some of whom have been our travelling companions since Darwin. We are the only ones going on to Sydney tomorrow.