Great Ocean Road - Day 3

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This morning we woke up surrounded by a herd of Kangaroos. There was about 20 or 30 of them in all sizes all the way around the van, feeding off the grass after the rain had cleared. Jo tested just how tame they were as she wound back the sunroof and poked her head out to take some photos. They weren’t too scared as they all stayed around! After 10mins or so a man and his dog walked across the nearby field which scared off a few of the Kangaroos and the rest soon disappeared when Jo climbed out of the van to walk over to the amenities block.

Today we drove back towards Geelong which is the first large city out of Melbourne when you head along the Great Ocean Road. But instead of taking the coast road – which we had covered in the last couple of days – we took a route up through the Otway forest. We were planning to take a look at a TreeTop walk they have set up in the forest but when we arrived it was just starting to rain so we learnt our lesson from the previous day and decided to drive on rather than risk being soaked through again. We drove down on to the Triplet falls where there was a 30min walk along the forest floor to the base of the waterfalls. There was no one else on the walk whilst we were there so we had the place to ourselves!

By the time we got back to the van the sun was starting to appear so we decided to take another look at the Tree Top walk way. We made a couple of pot noodles using the stove at the back of the Jucy van in the car park at the Tree Top walk before heading into the forest. There was also a tree top fly where you could use zip lines to get around the forest which looked like lots of fun, but at $180 each we decided it was too much for us to justify so we stuck with just the walk. There were lots of information points along the walk informing of the flowers and wildlife in the forest, there was even a little Jurassic Park set up where I think we both had a little too much fun – take a look at the photos! At one point on the walk there was a suspended Canter lever platform which would bounce up and down a little as you walked on – a little unsettling!

After the walk we grabbed a couple of coffees and cookies in the café before continuing our drive through the forest past Beauchamp falls and Mariner falls and back down on to the Great Ocean road at Apollo Bay. We stopped at a couple of viewing spots that we had missed out on the way down such as Mariners Lookout and Lorne pier, where there were a number of locals fishing in the harbour. We drove on to Geelong where we found a campsite just outside the town centre and found a local pub serving $15 Parmi’s (Chicken Parmigiana for anyone who’s not Aussie) where we had our dinner. This campsite was a bit more established than some of the others we had stayed in and there were quite a few permanent sites where people were living – including our neighbours who came and introduced themselves when we arrived before we settled down for our last night in the Jacy Van.

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