The Great Ocean Road

Our lonely camp ground at Cumberland River, shared only with 2 very large kangaroos

Cape Otway Lighthouse

Interesting tales from a former lighthouse keeper Pat (from Flinders Island would you believe)

View from the Cape Otway Lighthouse, looking back to the cottages

Some of the Twelve Apostles

Razorback and associated Islands

Road leading in to Cape Otway through the Otway National Park

Koala in Otway National Park

London Bridge has fallen down

Capstan and anchor from the wreck of the W.B. Godfrey, right at low water

So, our journey over the past few days has been along the beautiful, and wild, Great Ocean Road.  We've been in Victoria now for 10 days, and in that whole time we've only seen 2 sunny days.  Luckily the day we drove the major part of the Great Ocean Road was bright and sunny, hence the lovely pictures.

After leaving Queenscliff we travelled west through Barwon Heads (for those of you who remember Sea Change, this is where it was filmed).   Our first stop was at Cumberland River, where photo No. 1 was taken.  It's beautifully situated on the river, faced with a magnificent cliff.   As with most of the campgrounds at this time of year, free or otherwise, it was sparsely populated, except for two enormous grey kangaroos.  It was quite confronting opening the door in the morning and seeing them grazing near the van - we've been used to the small Bennett's wallabies and pademelons of Tasmania. These two kangaroos would both have been my height (which I know isn't much for homo sapiens but is still quite large for a kangaroo!)

After a lunch stop at Apollo Bay (quite the best souvlaki we've had outside Athens), and a stroll round the very pretty town, we headed for Cape Otway, an approximate 25 km diversion from the main road through beautiful bush and fern gullies to the Cape Otway Lightstation.  It incorporates the 1848 lighthouse,  1857 Lightkeepers' cottages, WWII Radar Bunker which was built in 1942 after a US ship, the City of Rayville, was sunk by a German mine off the Cape in November 1940, and the telegraph station.  

The 90km narrow gap between Cape Otway and King Island was so hazardous that at least 18 ships were wrecked there.  In 1835 almost 250 lives were lost when the convict ship Neva foundered off King Island.  In another major shipping disaster, 399 immigrants died when the Cataraqui was wrecked off King Island in 1845.  The Cape Otway Lighthouse was built in 1848 at the western approach to Bass Strait.   Originally fuelled by whale oil, then kerosene and later electricity, it shone 48 kms out to see.  The old light was decommissioned in 1994 and replaced with a solar-powered automatic beam (our lighthouse keeper called it a "Tupperware light").  We were fortunate to find a retired lighthouse keeper in residence when we climbed to the top of the lighthouse, and he was a font of knowledge of all things lighthousey, and even better, more tales of life on Flinders Island where he was born.  

After spending quite a few hours around Cape Otway we headed for another free camp, Red Johanna(?) nestled behind the dunes.  The beach is often the replacement location for the Bells Beach SurfPro when the waves are low at Bells.  We really enjoyed the campsite, especially having a lovely beach to walk on in the morning.  Seeing it at high tide and in bad weather would be a bit daunting though, as the cliffs are similar to the cliffs further east around the Twelve Apostles - best not to be caught on the beach with an incoming tide.

So, from Johanna we headed for Warrnambool where we have just spent 2 nights enjoying the "big city", and a morning visit to the great Maritime Museum on Flagstaff Hill.  

Unfortunately it is verboten to take any fruit or vegetables into South Australia, and we still have a fridge full of Cox's Orange Pippin Apples, so we might have to stay a couple of nights were we are tonight, at Fitzroy River Reserve, until we deplete our stocks.  I have just checked the quarantine regs again and the list of No's is endless, including most of what is in our fridge.  We're only a couple of hours drive from the border, so here we stay and here we eat!  The regulations vary from State to State, so we'll Google them when we get close to the SA/WA Border!