Asia/Australia 2013: Great Ocean Road parks

Though we spent a considerable portion of our time driving along the coast there were several inland parks that we stopped at as well.

On day one we headed inland from Lorne in search of several waterfalls.  Unfortunately, our luck wasn’t great, with Erskine Falls closed for re-construction of stairs. So, we turned around and drove to Phantom Falls. Finding the parking lot was easier than the trail and we got turned around twice due to some especially unhelpful directions. And then after a two mile hike… low waterflow.

Phantom Falls – seriously living up to its name

At this point we gave up on the other waterfalls in the area and went back to the Great Ocean Road. Along the way we did see the surprisingly good Carisbrook Falls.

On day two we started out with a walk through the lush Maits Rest Rainforest Trail.

quite green with lots of big trees and ferns

Beautiful scenery and green everywhere you looked. Just a little further west we turned south down Otway Lighthouse Road as directed by our B&B owner in order to see koalas. He wasn’t kidding- we saw at least 20 different koalas just hanging in the crooks of trees.

Awesome!

After our drive out to the twelve apostles we turned inland in search of a some waterfalls. Both were in stunning forest surroundings (and paradoxically with considerably less flying insects).

Triplet Falls

Hopetoun Falls

While both had lower flow than normal, they were at least running! From Hopetoun Falls we continued on the gravel lined forest service dirt road for 16 km back to the Great Ocean Road.

On day three we stopped at Bellbrae Estate winery as we made our way back to Melbourne. As opposed to the Yarra Valley these wines were much more acidic. In fact, I initially thought the Chardonnay was a Sauvignon blanc. I found their whites to be interesting due to the acidity, but that didn’t translate to the reds that Leandra tried, unfortunately. As with several of the other wineries we visited they were selling a 375mL pink moscato; it’s almost like a wine soda, and all the ones we tried tasted roughly the same. After our stop for wine we were back in the car and at the Melbourne airport about an hour later, where it was on to a stormy Brisbane.