Advertisement
Published: February 4th 2011
Victoria, Australia
Jan. 25th
Left Southern Australia today and are just across the border in Victoria. We are continuing to follow the coast line as the interior is still flooding. We keep hearing reports of different areas so are following the floods pretty closely. All is still well where we are though.
We have finally seen more alive kangaroos than dead ones. Saw a herd of them in Portland, on the coast. They were in a city park area which is part of the grounds of the Portland Aluminum Company. Yup, we found a smelter in this part of the world. However, other than just seeing it, like at home, there are no longer any tours available. This one makes strictly tri-lock ingots.
We are spending the night in Warrnambool and then heading for the Great Ocean Road in the morning. Did take a drive out to an animal reserve, in another volcano cone, and saw lots of kangaroos, rabbits and a couple of emus. Can’t get enough of those animals.
Jan. 26 Great Ocean Road
Hopkin’s Waterfall 14 km outside of Warranambool. We were told about these falls so decided to check them out
before leaving town. Driving out there we passed through relatively flat farm land. Both of us commented ‘how can there be a waterfall in this land?’ Then we saw it. A tranquil little river turned into a massive flood and a spectacular falls. One of the neat things about the falls is the amount of foam it is creating. It looks like a thick bubble bath with the foam covering the river and floating through the air. Glad we took the time to see it.
But that was just the start to a day of amazing sights as we toured along the Great Ocean Road…one of Australia’s 3 icons. (the other two being Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef) Our next stop was at:
Childers Cove - The coastline clearly shows the extent to which sea erosion has occurred over millions of years. The famous landmark ’needle rock’ fell into the cove in 1985 but still a spectacular coast line. Next was the Bay of Martyrs followed by the beautiful Grotto. Then came London Bridge, which is no longer a bridge because the rock formation has collapsed, The Arch, Loch and Gorge, and finally the most photographed feature
on the Australian coastline, the Twelve Apostles.
I could go into details about all these but I will let my pictures do the talking. It took us 6.5 hours to cover a 2.5 hour drive as we wandered around the coast line and through the beautiful wooded hill areas. The areas back from the coast reminded us of southern Vancouver Island, especially around N. Saanich Rd.
And there is one more yet. We detoured off the highway with the idea of visiting the Otway Lighthouse but didn’t make it there in time for the tour. This is because on the drive in we saw our first Koala Bear!. We had given up on seeing one in the wild but as we drove down the narrow road we saw people stopped so joined them ( as good tourists do). There in the tree right beside the road was the koala. It ignored the spectators and went about its business of eating the leaves. Then we started looking about and in the surrounding trees we counted at least 8 more, including a mom and baby. Even the locals were amazed to see so many of them together.
Then
to complete the day off, we are staying in a very nice hostel in a very pretty, touristy beach town. All in all, a good day.
Jan. 26,27 Apollo Bay
We are in very nice hostel here. Definitely the nicest we have found as everything is new, clean, and in good condition. Even sharing the washrooms is not a problem because they are well set up with private toilets and showers. And just one street over is a gorgeous beach which we enjoyed walking along….the South Ocean is just a bit cold for my blood.
After sleeping in and enjoying a quiet morning, we headed back to Cape Otway to check out the lighthouse. Along the way we just had to stop and watch those Koalas again. For such cute little animals, though, they sure make one ugly sound. They point their snouts towards the sky a grunt like hogs. Looks and sound just don’t go together.
After getting through the traffic jams around the koalas, we wandered around the lighthouse grounds. Interesting, but nothing too exciting until we wandered into an Aboriginal section of the grounds. There we found one of ground’s guides weaving
a fishing net. We started talking with him and a good half hour later we left with a wealth of information about the local peoples. Amongst other things we learned about the different boomerangs and how to use them for hunting. We learned about their fishing techniques and their types of dwellings. It was the best part of the lighthouse grounds.
Next morning we left Apollo Bay and headed up to the Beech Forest Tree Walk. This is similar to the one in Western Australia but the trees and different. Getting up there the roads were narrow and windy and took us an hour to cover the 40kms.
From there we headed back to the Great Ocean Road. This also took additional time to drive because it is so narrow and windy…but very beautiful. The road was built by the veterans of WWI as a tourist drive, which is what it still is today. It winds its way along the coast of the Southern Ocean where the waves crash into the shore. We ended our day at Geelong where we spent the night.
Jan 29, 30 San Remo, near Phillips Island
We skirted around Melbourne this
morning (e would have stayed in Geelong and taken a trip into Melbourne, but couldn’t get accommodations for an extra night so decided to continue on) by taking the Queensland Ferry across the mouth of Melbourne’s harbour, to Sorrento. The host of our last motel told us that sometimes porpoises can be seen on this crossing. She had never seen them, but her husband had. We saw them.
This whole area is a large tourist playground and Sorrento was overrun by them. We wandered around the town for a bit and then headed towards Phillips Island which is also a tourist mecca. This area is famous for its little penguins, which we plan to see tomorrow.
Otherwise, just a travel day. ( Pretty bad when the air conditioner reads 22C and I have to put on another layer.)
Tomorrow
San Remo is across the bridge from Phillip Island and had cheaper accommodations. Nice place though. Spent the first day wandering around and just enjoying the area. The evening we went to visit the Penguin reserve.
The Little Penguins are absolutely adorable. We spent the extra bucks and signed up for a ‘private’ tour of the penguin reserve.
Up to 3800 people can be seated in the stands to watch these little birds return from the ocean and head to their burrows. Our group had 6 of us with our own guide. After giving us an introduction to what we would be seeing, we went sat right at the high tide mark on the beach, within a metre or two of where the penguins swam ashore. And waddled up past us. After watching them for a bit we walked to another viewing area that only us ’special guest’ ( about 100 of us) could access. Right beside this boardwalk the penguins were preening themselves, resting, and waddling to the burrows. The young penguins were waiting for their parents at these burrows, some that were right beside where we stood. The best part though was after the tour we were watching a group of penguins standing very close to the tour building entrance. Then one of the braver ones jumped off the curb and stood standing looking at all of us people. The tour guides them made everyone stand well back, behind a marked line, and wait while this one penguin strutted across the walk way. That’s what I
call ‘bird power.’
This same evening we finally saw the Southern. Cross. It was a clear, dark night and our guide pointed it out to everyone. Another great day.
Jan 31 Lakes Entrance
This was a longer that usual travel day as I had booked into this hostel, not realizing the distance. It made for a long, tiring day, and to make matter worse, we did not like our accommodations. It was old and not all that comfortable, so rather than staying the 3 days we had planned, we only spent the one night.
Feb. 1 Malacoote
We meandered on our way here, checking out some of the local sites, but mostly we tried to stay cool. Just stepping our of the air-conditioned car was like stepping into an oven. The temperature was around 40C with a hot, dry wind. Sweating didn’t happen as the wind just dried you out too fast.. In fact, on the way here we stopped for lunch at a small community and the locals were expressing concerns that the extreme heat (around 40C) and the high winds was a recipe for fires
Malacoote is a small town on
the south eastern part of Victoria State on a pretty coastal area. . We had planned on spending at least 3 nights here, and maybe even a week so I booked into a place recommended by the Lonely Planet travel guide. Should have known better as the guide frequently doesn’t get it right. The place was big, but too dusty dirty for us. So we said no thank you and headed back into the town and found a motel that was much cleaner. It would have been an uneventful day except as soon as I mentioned to Darrel that I was going to heat up our dinner, the power went out. We had to have our ice cream for dinner instead as it was melting fast. The power did not come back on and without the air conditioner it was a very hot night.
Feb 2. Eden
We left Malacoote this morning ,with still no power, and drove a whole hour before arriving in Eden. We quite liked this place so after finally having breakfast we wandered around and found ourselves a nice family run motel. That was when we learned about the bush fires just west of
where we spent last night. They are very close to where we had had lunch with the locals who expressed their concern about fires. If we had been any later getting to Malacoote we would not have made it through because of the fires. That was also why the extensive power outage. We had seen the dark smoky red clouds last night but hadn’t heard anything about the fires until today.
Now we are glued to the TV listening to new about the cyclone about to hit Queensland. It is looking pretty bad for everyone up there. We had plans to travel up to the Cairns and Townsville area but guess that won’t be happening now. Between the floods and now this cyclone, Queensland is taking a real beating this year. We are in safe place and plan to keep it that way.
Feb 4 Narooma, New South Wales,
As I write this we are taking cover from one very wild thunder storm. The rain is pelting down and the wind is blowing. We were so lucky because when we sent grocery shopping, the storm was just starting; by the time we were done the first
Great Ocean Road
Twelve Apostles - or what is left of themdown pour was over. We made it back to our hostel and were cooking supper when the real storm hit. Nothing like up in Queenslands but still wild. Loved it.
We spent a second day in Eden and very much enjoyed the place. It is a small whaling village which is famed for its Orca whales of old. Apparently an orca pod would herd the whales into the bay here so that the whalers could kill it. As a reward, the orcas were allowed to take the tongue and lips of the whale before the whalers removed. This is a documented thing.
Naroomba is only about 100km north of Eden and is another coastal town. Took a walk along their bay boardwalk this afternoon (before the storm hit) and saw : seals, stingrays, an octopus, tons of fish, and some amazing blue crabs that came out with the tide. We ev
Advertisement
Tot: 0.083s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
sue
non-member comment
Pics of Australia
Hello you two, yay we finally have a day off today, Feb 7/11 we had no power all night and so the schools were chilly so they kept them closed, also got another 2 and half feet of snow yesterday and overnight.. Of course today is beautiful.. sun is out blue skies and +2 I think it is.. back to work tomorrow our retreat and the kids are going skiing wed.. Janise I love your pics, and I SO LOVE YOUR NEW HAIR DO.. I bet it feels good too hey in the 40 degrees.. I'm about to show Torey your pics and have to get Tacos on the go.. you keep those updates coming and you are both looking great... miss you so much Sue big hugs to ya...