Bay of Islands:
The road was soon dotted with Scenic Lookouts so, just west of Peterborough, we stopped at the car park associated with the Bay of Islands, which gave us remarkable views of this series of tiny offshore islands.
Rock stacks offshore provide nesting sites for silver gulls and for Victoria's only marine cormorant, the rare black-faced cormorant.
Bay of Martyrs:
The place name, together with nearby Massacre Bay and Massacre Point, refers to a strong local oral history which suggests that Europeans killed a large group of Kirrae-Wurrong Aboriginal men by driving them off the cliffs. The women and children were allegedly killed in a nearby swamp. Not surprisingly, there is no written evidence but it seems the local Aboriginal population did drop from a couple of thousand to virtually nil at some point.
We stopped at the Bay of Martyrs car park and took the short and spectacular clifftop walk from the carpark to Point Halladale, relating to the shipwreck of the 'Falls of Halladale' which ran aground here in 1908.
The bay is 2.5 km long, containing numerous reefs and sea stacks.
The Twelve Apostles:
The 12 Apostles is the name given to a collection of natural limestone stacks that rise up to 150 ft. (46m.) from the sea off the coast of Port Campbell National Park. The apostles were formed by erosion of the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed, leaving rock stacks. Until 1922 the site was known as the Sow and Piglets (Muttonbird Island was the Sow, and the smaller rock stacks were the Piglets). After 1922 it was renamed The Apostles for tourism purposes.
The stacks are susceptible to further erosion (of an estimated 2 cm. a year at the base of the limestone pillars) from the waves. In 2005 a 50-metre-tall stack collapsed into the sea and the Island archway lost its archway in 2009.
The Twelve Apostles are not 12 in number and never have been.
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| Stunning and awesome!! |
Koalas:
As we drove eastwards we came to a 'traffic jam' of cars and buses which turned out to be an impromptu sighting of a pair of koalas in a eucalyptus tree.
Cape Otway Lighthouse:
'I have seldom seen a more fearful section of the coastline.': (Matthew Flinders, mariner.)
Cape Otway Light Station is the oldest, surviving lighthouse in mainland Australia. It has been in continuous operation since 1848, having been commissioned after more than 350 lives were lost when the Cataraqui founded on a reef off King Island in 1845. It was built by more than 40 stonemasons without mortar or cement.
Apollo Bay:
Our stopping place tonight was the fishing town of Apollo Bay, midway along the Great Ocean Road.
Part of the traditional lands of the Gadubanud or King Parrot people of the Cape Otway coast, the land was originally named Krambruk, which is an Aboriginal word for Sandy Place, then in 1877 renamed Middleton, before in the late 1890s being again changed to Apollo Bay after the schooner Apollo which sailed here in 1845 by a Captain Loutit to shelter his vessel from a storm.
Inevitably, we didn't see very much of the town that evening apart from a walk on the beach and a very good Chinese meal in the Dragon Bay restaurant (4A Hardy St.).
Next morning Nic and Sue converted Steve to trying the Burcher Muesli (organic version this time)...
......before having a quick look at the Saturday morning market at the foreshore where there was also a large exhibition of timber Public art by a local sculptor.
Incredible shots of the 12 apostles.
ReplyDeleteglad you spotted some koalas in the wild too. Did anyone tell you that apparently in Victoria it is illegal to touch or 'pat' a koala- a law that doesn't apply in the other aussie states.
ReplyDeleteI think the GOR is one of the few places you can see wild echidnas but even there they are very rare.