Cape Otway, VIC

Sat 14 Feb 1998

Set off down the Great Ocean Road stopping at all the lookouts. The scenery along this coast is unfailingly majestic and it is not a little humbling to see the enormous power of nature in the sea set against the puny efforts of mankind in the road hewn by pick and shovel from the rugged hillside.

Stopped in Apollo Bay, another seaside town inhabited by tourists, holiday makers, and weekenders. One outstanding feature is the absolute lack of a greengrocer shop.

Met up with Don and Maureen who had spent the night in a freeby site which turned out to be at the other end of a long dirt road.

There is a blanket ban on sleeping in vehicles all along the coast, presumably to stop the surfing fraternity from spoiling it for everyone. This may, of course, be of incidental benefit to the caravan park owners but I should mention that six of the seven caravan parks in Lorne are run by a volunteer committee of residents.

Considerable effort has been put into tourist facilities by the local authorities. For example, lookouts are provided with safe boardwalks which go right out to the edge of the cliff.

We decided to try the Elliot River walking track in the Cape Otway National Park, said to be an easy 40 minutes there and back. After a dramatic drive down a track narrow enough and steep enough and rough enough and long enough to test the truck to its limit, we managed to walk halfway there and all the way back. The view of the ocean and the coastline through the bluegums was pretty spectacular. Lots of red wattlebirds.

Maits Rest is a stunning, cool, beautiful rainforest with gigantic mountain ash trees six, eight and more metres around the base and tall enough to touch the sky. The biggest is said to be 300 years old and is humungous.

The Cape Otway Lighthouse is hidden behind a hill, so we moved on to the Caravan Park set in a beautiful a valley a little way back from the coast with lots of shade trees, manna gums I think, and much wildlife. As I write this I hear red wattlebirds, magpies, musk lorikeets, kookaburras and several other species as yet unidentified, and we are told the koalas don't appear until after dark.

And so ends another beautiful day.