Week 511 · Twelve Apostles · Lorne · Erskine Falls · Teddy's Lookout
The Great Ocean
The visits from the USA continued — as Steph and Anish left, Annelise arrived on their plane, and then 10 days later, Annelise left and Mary arrived on her plane. The United Visa Explorer mileage promotion working out well for people coming to Australia. Annelise preferred hanging out around Melbourne than travelling within Australia — we hung out locally and enjoyed some really good Chinese food for Thanksgiving.
For the one trip outside Melbourne, we decided to not take the Great Ocean Road tour, but rent a car and a beach shack so we could see areas not visited by the tour. We did decide to drive straight to the Twelve Apostles for sunset.
It was raining most of the way there, but we were rewarded with the best post-sunset sky I have ever seen. For more than 30 minutes the sky was bright red. Then it turned very dark very quickly as we drove further down the coast to find the AirBnB beach shack — Annelise renamed it "a murder shack." But it was fit for purpose as a cheap place to spend the night.
The Twelve Apostles are a collection of limestone stacks off the Port Campbell National Park coast, formed by erosion over 10–20 million years. Constant wave action against the soft limestone cliffs creates caves, which then arch into arches, which eventually collapse into free-standing stacks. Despite the name, there were never twelve — only nine at the time of naming (originally called "The Sow and Piglets"), and today only eight remain standing. The tallest reaches about 45 metres. The stacks continue to erode and eventually collapse, though new ones form on a geological timescale.
The next morning, it was cloudy and we saw some great coastline but we found that the only thing worse than rain are flies. It was pretty unbearable. The longer the day went the more it rained — but at least the flies settled down. We stayed in Lorne which is a nice town but very quiet on a rainy Friday night.
We went in expecting rain to be the main challenge. We were wrong. The only thing worse than rain on the Great Ocean Road is the flies. Particularly on overcast, still days when there's no breeze to keep them moving. They don't bite — they just want to be on your face. Constantly. At least the rain settled them down eventually.
On Saturday, the sun was glorious to start and we did some hikes around Lorne — some were well published (like Erskine Falls) while Teddy's Lookout we only saw a sign beside the road. We ended up on a nature drive looking for a waterfall, but Annelise spied our first koala in the wild and we saw some wallabies as well (small Roos).
"For more than 30 minutes the sky was bright red. The best post-sunset sky I have ever seen."