After a short drive to the south, Port Campbell became our new homebase. Situated somewhat in the middle of the Great Ocean Road, Port Campbell is a small town of about 230 residents but I'd say, counting the additional itinerant population on any given day, that figure would easily triple.
We last visited Great Ocean Road in 1988 and have been keen to get back here for a long time. This time we got to take our time and take in the splendour of the vistas along the coastline.
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London Bridge 1988 - Judy standing on the arch with both boys in her arms. The arch collapsed 2 yrs later
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London Bridge in 1988
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First day exploring, we went to the west as far as Port Fairy. 'London Bridge' has changed a bit since our previous visit. One of the arches collapsed in 1990. When we were here in 1988, we walked across that arch to the other side. On the day it collapsed, a couple were trapped on the rock and had to be rescued by helicopter.
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London Bridge today
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London Bridge
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The Grotto
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The Grotto Point
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Halladale Point
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Halladale Point
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Bay of Islands
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Second day, we traveled a little to the east to take in the '12 Apostles' and 'Loch Ard Gorge'.
A couple of k's down the road, we visited Gibson's Steps. Here is the opportunity to descend the cliff to the sand beach via 84 (I counted every one) steps. Pretty proud of myself managing these as my first real test on my newly installed equipment in my right leg.
As the 12 Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge were only 10km and 6km away (respectivey) from our campsite at Port Campbell Holiday Park, I visited these several times over our stay - sunrise and sunset, hunting for optimal lighting conditions.
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12 Apostles at sunrise
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Loch Ard Gorge
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| Loch Ard Gorge |
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| Loch Ard Gorge |
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| Loch Ard Gorge |
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The Baker's Oven
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Day three of exploring took us further to the east but inland to Great Otway National Park to check out a few points of interest. First stop was Triplet Falls. Well, that was a mission for this broken down old fart - it was virtually more than 2km of stairs up and down and they called it moderate level of difficulty - just about broke me! The view of the waterfall was worth the trauma and the tree ferns!
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Triplet Falls
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After a cuppa and smoko on the tailgate, we went on to Hopetoun Falls. Saw that it was another arduous trek down into the valley, I just wasn't up to it. Then on to the Californian Redwood forest nearby. This small forest was planted experimentally in the mid 1930's and now they stand around 60m tall. Other softwood plantations are nearby.
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Majestic Redwoods
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Lunch on the tailgate and onwards with a visit to the Cape Otway Lighthouse establishment. It's one of the earliest established (1848) lighthouses in Australia.
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Cape Otway Lighthouse
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Cape Otway Lighthouse
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Day 4 was a rest day - just as well because the winds blew up to 65kph gusts, so it was good day to catch up on a few things.
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Our site backs onto the Port Campbell beach access track
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