Today we retrace our route to Port Campbell and enjoy more glimpses from the Great Ocean Road. They captivate just as much as yesterday. The sky is overcast today and the colours of the sea and heathland vary.
Beyond Princetown, the road turns north-east and climbs though soaring eucalyptus forests with tree ferns and views over rolling hills
. We turn onto the Cape Otway road in search of koalas. A large colony has lived along here in the past but we see only four furry bottoms high up in the trees. It's enough to thrill Catharine! (There's actually not much in this country that DOESN'T thrill Catharine!)
More apparent here are the areas where koalas HAVE been... Large tracts of forest denuded, leaving ghostly skeletons of gums. We decide against paying to visit the lighthouse at Cape Otway itself and walk to the lookout on the Great Otway Walk trail to see it peaking in the distance above the trees.
Beyond Lavers Hill, the road winds down to the sea and we follow the beach to Lorne. There's plenty of evidence of landslides along the road and the devastation from the fires at Wye River is still very apparent. The contrasts between the wild Southern Ocean seas of Warrnambool with the gentler breakers here is very apparent.
Dinner is at the iconic Lorne pub, accompanied by king parrots and cheeky sulphur crested cockies perched on the balcony railings, waiting for scraps.
We're going on a bear hunt...
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Lorne, Victoria, Australia
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2025-02-06