The Great Ocean Walk

We are back!! It was great, we had a really good time, with good weather and good company (just the two of us)

The house at Apollo Bay was very nice, but the cottage on Cape Otway was the best, it was one of four on a 30 acre property owned by a lovely lady, recently widowed, who had horses and two Jack Russell dogs, not my favourite breed but these two were the apples of her eye, and obviously great company.

What I did not realise was that Cape Otway is one of the relatively few places in Australia where you can actually see Koalas in the wild!! We were very lucky, and in the end got quite blase at yet another Koala!! It is funny, you think of Oz and you think of Koalas, yet there are not many of them, plenty of stuffed ones in all the gift shops but not many in the wild.

The object of the holiday had originally been to walk as much of the 91 km walk as possible, with two cars. As there was now only one car and one keen walker and one not so keen walker, we had to change our plans and work out how Ken could drop me at the beginning of a section and, hopefully, meet me at the end of that section. It was always a funny feeling for me (and I think for him as well) wondering if we would ever meet up again, and it was quite a relief when we did!!

I spent quite a bit of time pondering why I put myself through this walking business, why couldn't I just curl up with a good book and enjoy the holiday, why did I have to tramp alone through the Australian bush with my stick (lots of signs indicating snakes around, and some positive sightings but luckily not by me!!) Anyway, I feel I know the Great Ocean Walk and that beautiful coastline a lot better now. I will put more photographs in an album and send you a link, it is a bit of a pfaff putting them on here, they take for ages and come out all in the wrong position anyway!!

Our cottage, which was aptly called Sunrise, was lovely, only two years old and fitted out by Ikea, so quite trendy. We had to take enough food for the five days, as there were no shops round the corner. Thanks to a bit of menu planning we did quite well, ate quite well and had just enough for the duration. In the first house we had (or rather )Ken had a dishwasher, but in the cottage it was US. Never mind, used to that at home and even the dishwashing seemed more pleasant in such lovely surroundings.

On the second Sunday that we were there it was Mothers Day so I did get taken out to lunch at a very nice new restaurant so no washing up or cooking that day!

We also went to the Otway Fly, which is a walk over the trees deep in the rainforest. We have a similar one here in Tassie, called the Airwalk, Heidi has been on it, and as a rule Ken has no head for heights but partly to keep me company he agreed to come on, with the proviso that if he didn't like it he would retrace his steps, but he didn;t need to, apart from the 100 steps up to the tower in the middle, and the cantelever bit, he managed it all.

There are also a fair few lovely waterfalls, mostly including a bit of a walk, so we got plenty of these in as well, and heaps of steps all over the place, but it was good.

When we got back home, but that is another story, will tell you about that next post.
Cheers, Hazel.