So, after a quick stop in Port Fairy, I’m now in the Grampians, at Hall’s Gap. What a beautiful place. The Grampian themselves rise up out of the plains so abuptly they decided to name the first big one Mount Abrupt. Just North of Dunkeld, Mount Sturgeon and Abrupt look over the city. From here it looks to be a gently climb to the top. Nope! It’s not the steepest pitch I’ve been up but it’s certainly not flat. The views from the trail near the top and the summit are extremely rewarding being on the edge of the Grampians. Apparently Mount Zero on the north end is similar. It feels like you can see forever over the plains to the ocean.

Into the Grampians from Mount Abrupt

Further up the road to Hall’s Gap is the turn off to Silverband Falls. Not a bad little set of falls and a welcome sight after the dryness of a lot of Australia, even right now. It’s hard to imagine they are attempting to claw their way out of a horrible drought. The rain in Apollo Bay and here seemed to indicate otherwise but those of the lakes that actually have water in them are at their lowest levels in a long time. The interesting part of Silverband Falls is that the water pours over the edge and hits the ground but hardly creates a pool at all. The majority of the water goes straight into the ground. About 100 metres “downstream” it reappears and forms a small stream with what appears to be all the water that comes over the falls.

Silverband Falls

Further up the road is Hall’s Gap, a tiny town in the valley of the big peaks here. There’s an information centre, general store, a tiny outdoor store, a few restaurants and that’s about it. You could almost drive through and not even notice this place was here. It reminds me of small mountain towns that swell with the seasonal ski crowd but there’s no ski season in these mountains. Just a wet-ish winter and a dry hot summer. Feels like home. With so few people, there is almost a trail in the surrounding hills for each of them. This my kind of place.

With a quick look at the information centre on my way in, I was armed with a few pamphlets and a map that was $3.00. I was getting used to finding all the free information. Apparently the trail system around here warrants a map that you need to pay for. The signs at the parks point out all the trails with good detail but I wouldn’t be able to plan which ones I wanted to hit first or at all so I went for it. Already I’ve referred to it many times in the hostel, in the car and in the bush so it was $3.00 well spent.

After getting orientated at the hostel, I headed back to Silverband Falls to check them out and then to the Nature Centre to go for a walk around Fyan’s Creek. It’s a small 2k loop that circles part of the creek and it was definitely a nice way to end the day. The creek is fairly small but just enough water to keep everything moving. On my way there, I was distracted from the trail by 3 emu’s wandering around the park. I had seen a few from afar at Tower Hill but hadn’t been so close. They were moving pretty quick in the other direction so I didn’t get to close but I was happy at the distance I was at. I’ve heard some crazy near-death (not really) experience with those large birds. Near the end I spent some time with a herd of Kangaroos on one of the fields. They seemed very content with me sitting very near them and just watching. I’m assuming they’re used to people wandering around the park and gawking at them. Even photos don’t seem to phase them much.

Kangaroos by Fyan's Creek

I spent the end of the first day recuperating on a comfy couch beside a nice warm wood fireplace. I’m not going to say it’s very cold here but it wasn’t warm. It can’t get much better than a comfy spot beside a wood fire.

[gmap]

It would have been  nice to see the Apostles on a gorgeous sunny day but it was not to be. For the Apostles my luck held and the sun was out for a bit but it slowly deteriorated to sporadic rain later in the day.

There aren’t actually 12 Apostles left any more but it’s still an impressive site. The action of the waves carves away at the the cliffs constantly creating new headlands and sometimes there is only a tower of harder rock left. The shoreline in the area is constantly changing and in 50 years there will be a completely different scene there.  There may be more Apostles by then!

A few of the Apostles

Along the coast near the 12 Apostles there are a few other attractions that are quite beautiful. Built by the same processe as the Apostles, Razorback is quite a bit longer than any of them.

Razorback

Lock Ard Gorge was another beautiful attraction  just up the path from Razorback. The stairs down into it were a bit small but easy enough to traverse. The views from within the Gorge were definitely a change in perspective from how you see all the other places along the cliff-ridden coast.

Lock Ard Gorge

The Blowhole was near Lock Ard Gorge as well and was neat to see. The waves have made a tunnel all the way through the rock and then collapsed in from the cliffs to create a hole in the ground that is filled with water and waves.

The Blowhole

Near the end of the path around the area, Sherbrooke Beach went right down to the water and you could walk on the sand and watch the waves. The photo below was taken from Broken Head but afterwards I ventured down to the beach and took some photos only a little ways back from where the waves explode up the rock.

Waves on Sherbrooke Beach

London Bridge was a short drive up the road from the rest of the attractions. It wasn’t terribly exciting to see. There did used to be a bridge across to the tower from the mainland but it collapsed. No one was injured when it fell but 2 people were stuck out on the tower with no way back to the mainland!

London Bridge

Razorback by the 12 Apostles

End of Silent Street on the way to the Pinnacle

View from Mount William, the tallest in the Grampians

Mackenzie Falls

I didn’t think much of a little place called Apollo Bay when I was reading about the Great Ocean Road. Aside from the road going through it, there isn’t actually much to see or do there. People flock there in the summer because of the long gorgeous beach right across the street from the town but doesn’t seem to be overly popular since there isn’t exactly a lack of nice beaches in Australia.

When I rolled into town it was raining sheets. After turning off onto a gravel parking space for the beach, and going through a lake of a puddle in the process, I tried to find the hostel in my GPS. Often the place names in the GPS won’t have hostel in the name and it doesn’t have a category in lodging for them so it can take a bit of searching. I’m not sure if I forgot to add the maps for that section of Australia or there were just no streets in the map I had loaded for Apollo bay but none except the highway were showing up. Checking out the Visitor Centre pointed me in the right direction and I was off to the races, or, well, hostel.

The Melbourne Central hostel was nice but it was big and felt a bit like a hotel. After being there the hostel in Apollo Bay felt like a nice eco-friendly retreat.

The hostel was cozy and had a nice feel to it. There was one room that was simply 3 couches, 2 tables in between and a fireplace at one end. It was very relaxing to have the rain pounding outside and to sit down with a book on the couch and be kept very warm by the wood fire.

Attractions and things to do were low in number in Apollo Bay but there was a nice lookout and waterfalls that kept me busy for one of the days.

Marriners Falls is a short drive out of town along a narrow twisty road through a place called Paradise. The drive was beautiful going through jungle-like forest. The road was hardly one lane for the last bit though which made for some interesting driving situations. I assumed there would only be a gravel patch at the end of the road to launch the walk from but it was an actual carpark.

The trail itself made the trip worth it.

The trail to Marriners Falls

The waterfall at the end definitely did.

Marriners Falls

Marriners Lookout is a nice view of the whole city and the long beach that it sits on. There is a road half way up the hill and the rest is an easy wide path on some private property that has been donated. I was told it was a steep hill to the top and a pretty nice walk so I parked at the bottom and ran up to the trail and the top. It was definitely steep!

Apollo Bay from Marriners Lookout

Good sign on the Great Ocean Road

Eureeka Building in Melbourne

Entrance into Sheoak Falls

The Great Ocean Road

Trail near Sheoak Falls

Apollo Bay from Marriners Lookout

Aside from one wrong turn onto the highway I made it out unscathed and close to relaxed.  As long as you get onto the right part of the highway the driving is pretty easy. It’s taking the correct turn that’s quite interesting. With factoring in driving on the left-hand side and trying to figure out which way is north, split-second decisions don’t happen that fast. They seem to come a turn to late.

I’ve heard Geelong is similar to Nanaimo although I didn’t get to check it out much. I drove straight through it looking to see the most of the Great Ocean Road while the weather held.

Torquay is the official start of the GOR (Great Ocean Road) and it was beautiful. With a population of 6,600, most of the tourists or surfers, the town felt bigger than it actually was. I didn’t see any buildings over 3 stories so that might have been why it seemed to go on for a while. Half the city is usually at the many beaches along the coast including the famous Bells Beach. Bells Beach is home to the Rip Curl Pro Surf and Music Festival but there were only a few surfers there when I was.

Between the little cities was what I came to see, the Great Ocean Road. They weren’t kidding when they said it would be long miles of twisting and turning road hugging the coastline with gorgeous views sprinkled in. It was quite an experience to drive the road myself and well worth it but I didn’t miss out a bit on some of the vistas along the way. I stopped as often as I could sometimes to stretch out, sometimes to check out the view and sometimes to get out of the way of some crazy locals driving behind me.

Next up was the town of Lorne. Most of the small places along here are more townships than towns. A cluster of houses and shops that have the population of about 1000, Lorne is deemed the chic, fashionable place on the Great Ocean Road. It sounded expensive to me so I only slowly drove through the main street and checked out the sights from there. Looked like every small town to me!

After Lorne the road continued to wind it’s way along the coastline showing off the lush trees on one side and glittering water on the other. Slightly south of Lorne is a tiny trail off the side of the highway to Sheoak Falls. A place I had never heard of, I veered off the road just in time to catch the carpark and headed off into the trail. I saw a bit of a valley with a trail through it first and figured there must be a carpark somewhere.

It was a beautiful little trail that started off in a valley that wound it’s way up the hill for a ways. The stream trickled through under a bridge near the highway but not before going through a pile of tall bullrush type plans that glowed in the sun.

The trail quickly heads up to the falls and then past it if you want to a cave and rock formations but I decided to just see the falls and then get a bit of a run in back to the car. The rest of the drive was just as nice as the first but the weather started to deteriorate quickly. By the time I got to Apollo Bay it was raining heavily. My adventures there will have to wait till the next post!

[gmap]