It was another cold morning this morning. We awoke at about 8:30am to the sound of a car door closing. A quick look out the window confirmed that there was a Hilux or Navara ute parked across the carpark. Although we couldn't see anyone we figured they would have gone down to the beach. We had breakfast and packed up our camp. Just before we left we saw 2 guys come up from the beach, they headed back to the ute and they appeared to be carrying a few abalone which seem to be quite abundant in these parts. Still needing to finish our lighthouse tour, we headed back to the Cape Otway lighthouse for brunch, coffee and to continue our exploration.

We climbed back up the lighthouse steps and Julie finally got me to walk around the outside walkway at the top . The weather wasn't quite as nasty so it didn't blow me off. Apart from the caretaker's house and various quarters for lighthouse staff, we were pretty impressed to find a telegraph station, WWII bunker and aboriginal historic artefacts on the grounds. It was all pretty interesting and we spent another few hours reading about everything and taking photos. We still had a lot to see today so had to hit the road before it got too late. Our first stop was Laver's Hill where there were a few restaurants, B&Bs, a pub and a cafe or two so we stopped for a sandwich and more coffee before heading inland a bit to check out the Otway Fly. The Otway Fly is a tourist attraction with a suspended treetop walk and a Flying-fox like Zip Line Tour. When we heard of it we thought we would had to do it.

Anyway after a bit of a detour getting there (we had diverted from the GOR for about an hour), we were pretty unimpressed by the landscape. This wasn't pure virgin rainforest at all . It was regrowth from the days when people decimated the landscape. Not sure if this place had been a mining area or a logging area but it definitely didn't appear to be ancient forest. We got to the visitor's centre and had a look around. We were still a little bit annoyed by how crappy the place looked so when we saw the prices we simply laughed and walked back to the van. The treetops walk was cheap enough but the zip line tour was $115pp and took half a day. We wanted to do the zip line tour but as it was already 3pm, we couldn't do it. 

We took another diversion nearby which went down to some waterfalls. The one we visited was called Triplet Falls. We parked the van and hit the trail down to the falls. It was meant to be 1.8km return but the signs advised to allow 1 hour. We thought we could trump that as 6km/h would have meant we could do it in 20......so we jogged it. It was nice to work up some heat as the valley was quite cold. We saw some spectacular sights and photographed the waterfalls from each vantage point . At one point we stumbled across an old boiler from the old days of logging. The boiler would have been used to power mechanical saws used to cut wood. Interestingly, the boiler itself would have come from England and travelled to Melbourne, from there it would have been transported by bullock to the site of the old mill where the boiler was.

We got back to the car having completed the walk in 20 minutes. It was starting to feel late in the afternoon (about 3:30pm in late Autumn) so we hit the road back to Laver's Hill not stopping this time, we rejoined the Great Ocean Rd and headed back towards the coast passing through Wattle Hill and Gellibrand townships. The road wound it's way through the rainforest and national park until finally re-reaching the coast at Princetown. Now we were at the most exciting part of the GOR - the shipwreck coast. This is where the Twelve Apostles are. It was also the most touristy and busiest part. We started seeing tourist coaches full of people who weren't really experiencing anything - they were only there to mark destinations off their to-do lists .

We got to the first part of the Twelve Apostles - Gibson Steps, right on sunset so we got some great photos. We noticed a small Shearwater (bird) on the beach and were worried for him due to the abundance of foxes in the area. He may have fallen from the rock where the young Shearwaters wait until they lose their baby fat before the return flight to Siberia but we weren't sure if he was meant to be on the beach or not. The next stop was the actual Twelve Apostles lookout where we got some more photos but light was pretty low.

As night was falling and we were still not checked-in anywhere we thought we'd better head into Port Campbell to check out our options. We inspected the caravan park in town because after spending a night in the bush we needed somewhere with showers. It was close to the main street and they let us drive around and have a look. We found a spot away from the crowds right beside the creek with power. So we set up, plugged in and had a look around town . We looked at Greek, Italian, Kebab and Fish & Chips before settling for the Bombora Beach Bar. I ordered a schnitzel and we sat at our table overlooking the bay. The food was pretty good so we walked out happy.

We walked back to the van and set up our TV and internet. After a while we thought we'd go and check out the showers. The showers were bloody hot, which was a good thing as the weather coming off the bight was cold and rainy again. Having power meant that we could run the heater in the van which was nice for a change as we hadn't stayed in a powered site since the Mornington Peninsula, it also meant we could charge the big batteries (2 x DC27 calcium deep cycle batteries for lights, Waeco fridge and laptop/internet/LCD TV duties). We watched TV (all digital channels in VIC) and did some emailing. When the TV got boring we listened to 80's music on internet radio. All lights were out by 11pm.