Tuesday 2nd February

Wonderful day on the Great Ocean Road.  The road was built as a memorial to soldiers killed during WW1  built by those who survived. It is 243km long, beginning at Torquay and ending at Alansford, and thus the longest war memorial in the world.

 

The scenery was fabulous, the ocean on one side and forest on the other.

 

 

 though signs remain of the devastating Christmas Day fires.

We stopped off at several villages along the way, including the exclusive Lorne where there are many holiday homes, until we arrived at Otway lighthouse.

Otway Lighthouse.

 

 This bit of coast was the first land  that settlers saw  on their way from England, and this particular lighthouse was built to ease their passage. It was manned by one person from 1848-1878 and he claimed it had never lost its light in all thirty years. Also on the site was a radar station used for tracking Japanese submarines during the war,

 

 

 and a copy of an Aboriginal home.

We hiked through the temperate rainforest and listened to a talk on its structure and plants

 

then went on to the beautiful Loch Ard beach, named after a ship wrecked in the bay. All but two of those on board were drowned. All that way from Gravesend, just to perish in sight of shore.

 

As it was too wet by now to visit the Twelve Apostles, we made our way to Port Campbell where we stayed in a very modern hostel and ate pizza in the rain at the beach.

 

 Wednesday February 3rd

After a buffet breakfast Matt's "team" cleared up and prepared a picnic lunch, all very organised and done in minutes.

As we missed the Twelve Apostles last night because of the rain we returned this morning although the weather had not improved. The twelve apostles are  sandstone stacks eroded from the cliffs by the sea and very similar to the ones in Dorset. The wind was blowing hard and the rain pouring down so it only emphasised the similarity.

 

We then moved on to London Bridge, which has now fallen into the sea.

 

At the time of its collapse a group of people were visiting and a man and his girlfriend were stranded on the wrong side. Helicopters were called out and the media arrived and the couple were rescued .Not, however, before the man’s wife saw the whole thing on t.v.!
After this we went to the Bay of Martyrs

 

 
And to Tower Hill, once a volcano, where we had our picnic lunch.

 

 

We then drove up into the Grampian the southern edge of the Great Dividing Range, and stopped at Brambuk, a national park and cultural centre. Here we had a fascinating lecture about  Aboriginal customs and lore, all best practice as teaching as everyone had to take part. I was lucky and got away with painting my face , but later attempts at playing the didgeridoo or yiddika were fruitless. We then saw a film about one of the dreaming legends and learned how to spot the Southern Cross. We also spotted kangaroos in the wild and passed vast plains with flock after flock of sheep as well as some cattle.
Our rest for the night was at the Asses Ears Ranch, in the middle of nowhere, log cabins or camping, with an airfield, bar and lots of wildlife. The owner had been an observer for the UN and had traveller extensively, when he asked our nationalities he had visited most countries. What a strange place to live though; his nearest neighbour is three miles away.

Thursday  February 4 th

I think we were all sorry to leave Steve's ranch, and certainly don’t think he had quite exhausted his remarkable fund of stories!

 

Our first stop was Mackenzie Falls where we followed a very well kept path to the waterfall and down into the valley . Still quite chilly in the mountain air, and the Grampians are much more like their Scottish counterparts, though much of the sombre view was because of the devastating fires a couple of years ago. The blackened stumps and trunks of trees are being covered with regrowth. But it is still easy to see the damage caused.

 

We went to Reed’s lookout, where there is a fire spotting station and where some of the group attempted dramatic photo calls on the very edge of the precipice. Not me!

Our next hike was in Hall’s Gap where we followed a lovely path along the valley to the stone escarpment we had passed earlier and then across the creek and back via the Botanic Gardens.

Matt had recommended the local ice cream shop so we all refreshed ourselves before lunch, then back on the coach to Horsham where we were to catch the public bus to Adelaide. A very tedious journey especially when we could see all the sunshine outside.