Halls Gap
Our next stop and one of our favourite places anywhere in Australia was the wonderful town of Halls Gap high up in the Glorious Grampians.
This was the Victoria equivalent of a quaint European alpine town.
It was small, with very few shops, just one main street and pure, clean, fresh mountain air.
One of the best things about a stay in the Grampians is that it is as far from a mass tourist destination as anywhere in Australia.
We appreciated that much more when we started our Great Ocean Road drive the following day and encountered coach after coach of tourists from every known corner of the earth.
We knew this short stay was going to be memorable the moment we received the most extraordinary email from the landlady of the Gariwerd Motel which we had reserved as a low-cost overnight option on Booking.com.
In fact the following entry is built around that very email which was sent to us the previous week so this section is courtesy of the Gariwerd Motel. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did:
"Dear Guest,
Hi, it's not long now until you are staying in the glorious Grampians with us here at the Gariwerd Motel.
We thought we would send this pre-arrival email to you so that you can get the most out of your stay at the Gariwerd Motel in Halls Gap and help you prepare for your trip".
Considering this was a low-cost online booking, we were very touched by this personal pre-arrival email.
It continued with:
"Getting here
From 5pm the kangaroos are most active. So driving the roads around Halls Gap can be a little dangerous as the kangaroos have no road sense and can jump in front of your car.
It's the wrong kind of surprise!
So knowing this please drive carefully and drop your speed when coming into Halls Gap at this time.
I drive like "Nana the Senior Citizen" at this time and I have no shame.
Remember not to swerve if you do have a kangaroo on the road, you may have to hit it, but best that, than you end up in a tree :-)
If you are coming in from the Adelaide side, your GPS will quite "helpfully" tell you to take route C222 which is a right turn from the Highway around 16kms out of Horsham.
This road is through the Grampians, up and over and very windy. So my suggestion is don't do it in the dark as you can't see anything anyway and if you have had a long drive you would be tired and this is a difficult road to drive late at night, and so so many kangaroos!
So ignore the GPS (I like to use some choice words when speaking to the GPS when it makes bad decisions, obviously use words you feel appropriate!) and keep going to Stawell, turn right at Mitre 10 as you are coming into the town - there are signs so you can't miss it.
Watch out for kangaroos after dark.
You should also know that it's probably not a good idea to approach or stroke the kangaroos especially if they have a joey in their pouch".
This section was totally hilarious. Especially to three Poms who would like nothing more than have a close encounter with 'so, so many kangaroos'.
But we took the kind lady's advice as we didn't want to "end up in a tree" and we certainly didn't want to hit a poor kangaroo whilst it was hopping around in its own mountain habitat, so we really did drive like "Nana the Senior Citizen" for that last stretch of road coming into Halls Gap.
Fortunately for us our GPS took us the 'sensible' way round so we didn't encounter any kangaroos on that route into town, but it was good advice nevertheless, as three travelling Brits would probably not have 'kangaroo avoidance' on their road safety radar.
We also appreciated her advising us "not to approach or stroke the kangaroos" especially as we had already been warned about their lethal middle claw at the Ku-ring-gai National Park in North Sydney.
As amusing as this email was, a small part of me couldn't help but wonder whether the many references to kangaroos was just marketing hype for the benefit of foreign tourists and that on arrival at the Gariwerd we would discover there were no kangaroos there at all.
We couldn't have been more wrong.
Before travelling to Australia the previous December, I read an interesting article on the nydailynews website which claimed that kangaroos had "outpaced the population of Australian residents 2 to 1".
It claimed that "there were 24 million residents in Australia in 2016 and 44 million kangaroos at last count in 2015".
These were astonishing statistics but up until that point I had seen no evidence of it at all.
We had certainly spotted kangaroos in the wild on several occasions (including our very own Barossa garden one), but we had never seen them in large numbers.. ...at least not until we arrived in Halls Gap.
In this sleepy little town high up in the Grampians, there were kangaroos everywhere.
We saw several outside our motel bedrooms, a large grey with a joey in her pouch was in the front garden of what looked like an empty holiday home next door, then in the grassy sports field behind our motel there were huge numbers of them. 20 or 30 at least.
A group of children were playing football in that field and they just ran around them as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
The kangaroos were totally unfazed by them as well.
They were clearly all used to cohabiting quite happily together in this extraordinary town.
We sat on the grass at one point to enjoy the last few rays of evening sunshine and watch how the kangaroos just continued grazing all around us.
It was at that point that I realised that two of the 'kangaroos' at the far end of the field were actually emus.
My eyesight isn't brilliant at the best of times but that afternoon with the glare of the afternoon sun bouncing off my tinted glasses, I honestly thought that the emus were just slightly fluffier kangaroos.
But I suppose it's also the fact that two emus grazing happily in a field full of kangaroos is the very last thing I expected to see. It was totally and completely beyond my wildest dreams.
Here we were in what looked like an ordinary village green, not dissimilar from any village green back in the UK, but surrounded by kangaroos and emus. It really was truly wonderful! Undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary experiences of our entire trip.
It goes without saying that this was that most quintessential of moments when we all acknowledged together that we could only be in Australia.
Kangaroo outside our motel bedrooms
Kangaroos grazing in the sports field in Halls Gap
Emus or ‘fluffy kangaroos’ in Halls Gap
School children playing football in Halls Gap with Kangaroos and emus grazing and hopping around them
Emus and kangaroos in the sports green in Halls Gap
Kangaroo grazing near where I was sitting in the sports green in Halls Gap
Emus and kangaroos in Halls Gap in the Grampians with children playing in the background
Large grey kangaroo with her joey in the front garden next door to our motel in Halls Gap
Barossa Wine and Kookaburras
Going back to the wonderful email the motel landlady sent us prior to our arrival, the section pasted below on the motel check-in procedure was absolutely priceless:
"Check-in is between 2pm and 7.00pm.
If you want to come earlier give us a call as we often close reception until this time as we are busy getting your rooms ready.
If you are coming after closing, you will need to let us know in advance :-)
So 8pm is when things close.
We close!
So if you are coming after 8pm make sure you have given us a call so we can make arrangements to get you in your room.
Also make sure you have eaten.
Our restaurants, general store all close around that time, although the Fish & Chip Shop and Pizza shop are sometimes open to 9pm.
I wouldn't risk it though as they are prone to closing if no one is around, so eat first if you are coming in after this time.
The motel has a communal kitchen and BBQ so feel free to bring your own food to cook on it.
It's lovely to have a BBQ in our garden area - but you need to watch the kookaburras because they are cheeky and will steal your best steak (they have very good taste!).
We suggest that you pack an extra sausage or two that you can fling to them so that they will fill up on that and leave you (and your food) alone.
We have tried to discourage these cheeky but persistent birds with attitude but this is a case of if you can't beat them, it's best to feed them!
I am sure our excellent landlady's intention in writing the above was to provide us with essential information in a lighthearted manner.
This was much appreciated with regard to check-in and restaurant times; we were certainly grateful to discover that everything in this town closed at 8:00 pm. Fortunately for us we weren't travelling to Halls Gap for the bars and the clubbing. 🤣
But when it came to kookaburras, as non Australians, we didn't yet know what they looked like.
We took her up on her offer of a BBQ in their garden though; all three of us were keen on that especially as we had quite a few bottles of Barossa wine to consume, so we picked up a few provisions in Mount Gambier including a pack of chipolatas for the kookaburras, as the good lady had advised.
The BBQ was better than expected as we were all on an incredible high after our kangaroo and emu experience and the excellent Barossa wine flowed freer than we had originally intended.
It had been an excellent evening.
As for the chipolatas, we're not 100% sure whether we had any kookaburra encounters that evening or not.
A large flock of birds descended upon us as soon as we started grilling, but we have absolutely no idea what they all were. We think they were mainly cockatoos and parrots but there were several others with them that we couldn't identify.
We were happy to 'fling them the odd sausage' which definitely kept them away from our food and the hot grill, but whether they were eaten by kookaburras, cockatoos, parrots or pigeons was not at all clear.
What we are in absolutely no doubt about at all is that this BBQ under the stars in a remote mountain village in Australia, accompanied by copious amounts of Calabria and Yalumba remains one of our fondest memories of the entire trip.
Cockatoos and parrots in Halls Gap
Flocks of birds in Halls Gap in the Grampians
Cockatoos and another bird begging for food in Halls Gap in the Grampians
Cockatoo eating with others looking on
Tuesday 4 February 2020
Black coffee, red-bellied snakes and duck poo
The final section of our landlady's email focused on all the activities that the excellent Grampians had to offer.
This section of her email was extremely long as the choice of things to do there was the most comprehensive we had ever seen.
We really did regret at that point, that we would only be spending one night in this wonderful holiday destination.
I have pasted below just a few of the activities on that list that we had considered and that we definitely would have liked to participate in had our Grampian sojourn been slightly longer.
Her email continued with:
Planning Your Stay
Check out our online guide to the Highlights of the Grampians that we've prepared for you.
It includes an interactive map which may give you some idea of the wonderful walks and drives available.
There is so much to do around here for every age group.
Rangers and Junior Rangers often do guided walks in the Park.
Guided walks are advised if you are unfamiliar with walking in the Grampians.
Details are at the Halls Gap Info Centre or Brambuk Visitor Centre.
GRAMPIANS HELICOPTERS run a fantastic business and can get you up in the air for an unforgettable view of the Grampians, for not very much.
They can also take you to wineries and to picnic areas.
ABSEILING AND ROCK CLIMBING. You can fling yourself off a rock face for as little as $60.
Best to book in advance though.
For Rent and Sale of outdoor gear: Absolute Outdoors has it all. Kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddle boarding, mountain-bike hire, rock-climbing, abseiling and transport shuttles for hikers,
If you like MARKETS Halls Gap Primary Market is on long weekends in School Road.
Our Community Market on main street is on every 3rd Sunday (except in March).
HORSERIDING. Trail rides through the Grampians can be organised by phone or via their website
Halls Gap Swimming Pool (Open from Nov to March each year)
No-one swims in this pool in winter, as not only will you suffer from hyperthermia but the duck poo would be atrocious!
Check out our Things to Do page on our website.
Remember though that living in the country is tiring - all that fresh air and dodging wildlife on the road!
We are looking forward to seeing you soon,
Cheers and safe driving
The Gariwerd Hotel
PS the name "Gariwerd" pronounced "Gary-Word" is the indigenous name for the area known as the Grampians, hence the name :-)
Black coffee
Before even considering how we were going to spend our one and only morning in the Glorious Grampians, we agreed that lots of strong coffee was required to enable us to focus not only on our plans for the morning ahead but also for our long drive later to Apollo Bay.
We realised at this point that we had definitely consumed far more of our Barossa wine store than we should have done the previous evening, especially as we were on a road trip in an unfamiliar land.
Fortunately for us our landlady's email also included a comprehensive list of cafés and bakeries where we could get good coffee and a vast selection of breakfast options.
Halls Gap appears to come to life in the morning. We found a busy little square in the centre of town with tables and chairs full of happy tourists, and a selection of eateries all around.
I ordered a large coffee and a muffin but the others opted for scrambled eggs and bacon rolls.
The coffee was excellent so I ended up drinking two more cups of it but I discovered that my stomach wasn't quite ready for the blueberry muffin.
It was at this point that we were joined by two kookaburras as well as lots of very noisy cockatoos, a few beautiful red parrots and a selection of what we think were magpies and crows. All loud, all noisy and all hungry.
I had seen them on other people's tables before we sat down so I was happy to share my muffin with them as others were doing before we got there.
But that was a bad idea. Within seconds of my making the muffin available to them, so many more arrived that one of the bakery servers approached me and kindly asked me to not feed them in the café area.
Of course, I wouldn't normally feed birds where people are eating, I saw someone doing it in Darling Harbour in Sydney with the gulls and the mess they made was disgusting.
But I thought it was different in Halls Gap.
Having been encouraged to share our BBQ with kookaburras by the Gariwerd Motel, I thought that feeding these birds was also encouraged as it would keep them away from what people were eating, besides almost everyone from every table was doing it but clearly that was not the case at all.
An interesting thing happened soon after we all stopped feeding them. The cockatoos and parrots eventually flew away but the two kookaburras did not.
They stayed perched on our table staring straight at us and at the food we were all eating then suddenly and with no warning at all one of them flew over to the next table where two chaps were eating what looked like sausage rolls, the determined kookaburra swooped down at speed and aggressively snatched the sausage roll right out of one of their hands, flew with it into the tree opposite and had his own private feast in full view of everyone in that square.
I had never seen a bird do such a thing. The poor chap who had lost his breakfast was visibly shaken especially as three other kookaburras appeared out of the blue at that very moment.
The server arrived with complimentary sausage rolls for her two disconcerted customers and strangely enough with a bowl of bacon scraps for the extra kookaburras which she placed at some distance from all of us.
We definitely knew what kookaburras looked like NOW 🤣
Beautiful parrot in Halls Gap in the Grampians
Second parrot in tree above our table in breakfast garden in Halls Gap
Cockatoos at our neighbours' table before the kookaburra steals one of their sausage rolls
Cockatoo arrives at our table hoping for scraps
So, so many cockatoos in Halls Gap in the Grampians
Cockatoos on our breakfast table trying to eat our food
Kookaburras fighting over scraps in breakfast area in Halls Gap
Cheeky kookaburra sitting on our table hoping for some bacon tit-bits
Kookaburra staring at me menacingly when I stopped feeding it
Kookaburra turning its gaze in the direction of the sausage roll
Kookaburra back in its tree having devoured the stolen sausage roll
New kookaburra lands on our table hoping for sausage roll
Red Bellied Snakes and Duck Poo
We cannot thank the Gariwerd hotel landlady enough for sending us so much information about this lovely yet comparatively unknown area of Australia.
We also appreciated her telling us that Gariwerd was the indigenous term for the region which is why they chose that name for their motel.
We actually intended to visit Brambuk after breakfast that day.
Brambuk is the National Park and Cultural Centre in Halls Gap which was set up in 1989 "to acknowledge, protect and share the cultures of the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung Peoples".
As is stated on the Brambuk website:
"This award-winning Cultural Centre was designed collaboratively with the Traditional Owners of Gariwerd by renowned architect, Greg Burgess, to celebrate connection to Country".
When I went to the small tourist information kiosk near our breakfast café, to purchase tickets, I was told that Brambuk was closed for maintenance work until Thursday.
As we would be leaving Halls Gap later that day, we clearly had to find a suitable alternative that would fit in with the limited time we had left in this truly unique area of Australia.
We perused our landlady's email again and cogitatated on how to spend the rest of that morning there.
We loved the sound of a Grampian Helicopter tour especially as they could 'get us up in the air for not very much'.
A helicopter trip to a local winery would certainly have been amazing but in the end we decided against that due to time constraints.
The same applied to abseiling which our friend would have loved.
Had we been there longer she would have certainly wanted to 'fling herself off a rock face for as little as $60'.
As my husband is not a fan of heights, I expect he would have joined me horse-riding instead.
A 'trail ride through the Grampians' sounded idyllic to me.
Markets were not an option as they were only there at weekends.
So in the end we thought a swim in the bracing, cool waters of the town's outdoor pool would set us up for the long drive ahead but on further reflection, we all agreed that the mental picture created by our landlady's email of a pool full of animal excrement, was not to our liking at all.
We did realise that she was referring to the winter months when she alluded to the 'duck poo' in the pool but our interpretation of it then was that if the copious amounts of 'poo' in that pool was to become so very 'atrocious' in winter, then surely the ducks would be using it as a latrine in the summer as well.
That may not have been the case at all of course but on balance we decided not to find out.
So we chose to go for a walk through town instead.
We wandered down the the town's only main street and ended up in a larger square which was full of an even greater variety of birds than we had seen in the café area.
They were flying very noisily from tree to tree, then gathering on the ground as curious tourists fed them.
On this occasion we did NOT, but we did enjoy watching them squabble, squeal, land noisily in large flocks then fly off again as rowdily as when they arrived. It was fascinating.
There were so many different types of birds in this square.
We spotted the usual cockatoos and kookaburras but there were also large numbers of white parrots, red and green parrots, magpies, crows and what looked like beautiful Gouldian finches such as we had seen at the wildlife park in Perth.
That square really was a bird watcher's paradise.
Having spent longer admiring the bird life of Halls Gap than we originally intended, we decided to return to the motel, collect our car, set off towards our next destination but stop somewhere interesting in the Grampians en route and go for a pleasant mountain stroll.
After consulting the Gariwerd Hotel's online guide, we decided to drive to McKenzie Falls.
McKenzie Falls is recognised as the most beautiful and popular waterfall in the region, so we packed the car and set off.
According to our map McKenzie Falls should only have been a short drive from Halls Gap but driving on windy mountain roads without a phone signal or a sat nav that recognises the local beauty spots, it didn't take us long to realise that we may have been a little lost.
We tried to make sense of the map as best we could but in the end rather than risk getting even more lost than we already were we decided to programme our next destination into the sat nav and stop for a walk when we were no longer on windy mountain roads.
This we did but soon after we started our descent towards the main highway, we saw a sign to Silverband Falls.
We unanimously decided to stop the car and walk the trail to the falls.
The 1.5 km walk was beautiful; it was through a densely wooded area and the path was rugged and natural.
Among other wonders, we spotted ferns, wildflowers, bright yellow banksias and lilac fringe lilies. It was delightful.
When we were about half way into our walk, we went through a darker, more densely wooded area where you had to watch your footing carefully as the ground was very uneven (it didn't help that I wasn't wearing my walking shoes).
It was in this section of woodland while we were walking gingerly through the stony, bumpy ground that suddenly and totally unexpectedly, a long dark snake slithered across the path just a few centemetres from my right foot.
Fortunately I was looking down at my feet and walking very cautiously at the time but had I been admiring the lovely woodland ferns and flowers or looking at the burnt remains of fire damaged trees, as I was doing at the start of our walk, my poor right foot may have had a rather unfortunate collision.
I learnt later that the snake I spotted was almost certainly a Red Belly Black Snake.
It appears that this is a highly venomous snake but timid and not known to attack unless provoked.
Our walk had been invigorating and energising and when we finally reached the waterfall we were happy to see a single but strong stream of water flowing down into the rocky stream below. (Waterfalls are known to dry out in Australia during the hot summer months)
I must say, however, that from that moment onwards I no longer went for country walks in Australia without wearing my walking shoes and my snake radar was on high alert whenever I found myself in country areas.
Even though I am now safely back in Surrey, I still find myself inadvertently looking for snakes when I go for long country walks.
I can't help but think that I had a very lucky escape that day in the Grampians
The main street in Halls Gap in the Grampians
The beautiful Silverband falls area in the Glorious Grampians
Silverband falls woodland trail
Yellow banksias as seen in the Grampians (photo courtesy of free art.com)
Beautiful lilac finge lilies as seen in the Grampians (photo courtesy of anpsa.org
MacKenzie Falls in the Grampians (the ones we were hoping to see). Photo courtesy of visitmelbourne.com
Red-bellied black snake as seen on the Silverband trail in the Grampians (photo courtesy of Jules Farquhar - flickr)
Grampians to Port Fairy
www.countrylife.co.uk/travel/port-fairy-australia-former-whaling-town-bite-name-suggests-australias-great-ocean-road
https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/port-fairy
Although we left the Grampians hours later than originally planned, our drive to Port Fairy was very straightforward and uneventful.
It took us under two hours including a petrol and coffee stop to drive from the car park at Silverband falls to the harbourside area of Port Fairy.
Sadly we couldn't spend too long in Port Fairy but we had heard that it was a pretty little fishing town at the start of the famous Great Ocean Road so we felt that a short walk around the port area wouldn't delay us too drastically.
What I had read about Port Fairy which I actually found quite distressing, was that "around 200 years ago, fishermen came to this town to plunder the Southern Ocean for seals and whales to such an extent that both were almost completely wiped out".
In fact the town was named "after a small boat ‘Fairy’, captained by James Wishart, which entered the port and probably the River Moyne during a whaling reconnaissance".
"Popular accounts have put the date of the event at 1810, but surviving primary evidence and general knowledge of Bass Strait whaling and sealing activity strongly support a date of 1828-29".
It was said that "for much of the 19th century, whale bones littered the entire length of the town's long beaches".
Obviously the above is not something many 21st century travellers want to hear about, but history is what it is, it cannot be denied or re-written but hopefully it can teach us useful lessons which we will never repeat.
To my knowledge, commercial whaling in Australia ceased in 1978 with the closure of Australia's last whaling station at Cheynes Beach in Western Australia and in1979 Australia adopted an anti-whaling policy, permanently ending whaling in Australian waters.
With that in mind we thought that a stop in this pretty town at the far end of the Great Ocean Road would be lovely.
I had also read that the few buildings that "had survived from Port Fairy’s whaling heyday, were built of bluestone, a particularly hard basalt of blue-grey widely quarried across Victoria.
The result is a townscape in miniature, of remarkable and delightful visual coherence".
So despite its questionable beginnings, "Port Fairy now has a settled and charming gentleness.
Its lure for visitors is a combination of natural setting and the unusual survival of so many colonial-period buildings.
Along the former wharf, a row of handsome, mostly period houses is backed by towering Norfolk pines that scatter their dark cones thickly.
Wooden jetties and a walkway fringe the riverside gardens.
There are boats here all year round creating a constant busyness that is associated with marinas and the percussive clink of serried masts".
It was the perfect place to stop for a walk and a cup of tea, in fact, on reflection we should have booked to stay there for that night, not only so we could spend more time in this charming coastal town, but to render our Great Ocean Road voyage a little more manageable.
Sadly it did not work that way for us but hopefully anyone reading this, considering a similar trip, will benefit from our experience and from how we would change certain aspects of it should we ever embark upon such a voyage again.
Beautiful Port Fairy (photo courtesy of Getty for countrylife.co.uk)
The coastal boardwalk in Port Fairy
The marina area in Port Fairy
Port Fairy - Great Ocean Road, Victoria
One of the many tourist cruisers in Port Fairy, Victoria
The Great Ocean Road
From Port Fairy onwards we joined a myriad of other motorists and set course for Australia's iconic Great Ocean Road.
Although driving the Great Ocean Road is something I had wanted to do for a very long time, I knew very little about the road itself before I started planning our trip, so for anyone reading this who may be in a similar position, you should know that it is a 244km stretch of road running from Allansford, Victoria (about 35 km from Port Fairy), to Torquay, Victoria and when you are on it you will see some of the most beautiful coastal scenery anywhere in the world.
What is particularly poignant about the Great Ocean Road and is relatively unknown in the main, is the fact that it was built by WW1 soldiers when they returned to Australia after the war and is now a permanent memorial not only to those who built it but also to the thousands of other young men all over the world who did not return home at all.
The main problem with a road trip in a foreign country, where you are visiting new and unfamiliar places, is that you can never imagine the impact that each of these new places will have on you until you are actually there.
At the start of this blog, I alluded to the importance of the planning stages on trips of this kind.
Everyone needs to do a certain amount of forward planning on road trips anywhere but this is particularly important if you are a little older and creature comforts are not so much a luxury but a necessity.
It is during the planning stages when you decide where you are going to stay on any given day, what you plan to see or visit in that town or area, where you might have a meal if you don't have access to a kitchen and if you do where the nearest market or supermarket is.
It is also during the planning stages that you need to consider what needs to be booked and paid for in advance and what you would do if you need to have a schedule change or if the timings don't quite fit as well as you were hoping they would.
We had already dealt with a few major schedule changes as a result of the wildfires but we had never had timing issues before; at least not until that afternoon after leaving Port Fairy and setting course for Apollo Bay.
Our trips to Robe and to the Grampians had replaced our original plans to visit Kangaroo Island
We didn't know very much about the Grampians before we got there but once we were there we all agreed that it was so wonderful that we should be in no hurry to leave the following day.
Driving the Great Ocean Road in Australia is seen as one of the most beautiful and scenic road trips anywhere in the world.
Having now experienced it myself, I concur wholeheartedly with this general opinion and I can totally understand why so many people everywhere list this voyage as one of the top five things on their 'bucket list' (for want of a better expression).
So when / if you are planning a Great Ocean Road drive yourselves, make sure you allow yourself ample time to absorb the numerous natural wonders that you will see on your many stops.
Had we left Halls Gap at 8:00 am we would have had more time in Port Fairy and we could have spent longer at all the extraordinary beauty spots along our Great Ocean Road drive to Apollo Bay.
But on balance and with the benefit of hindsight, even that would not have been ideal.
First and foremost, to have left the Glorious Grampians any earlier than we did would have been truly regretful as we enjoyed being there so, so much.
No, if we could have changed anything at all, we would have not booked a hotel in Apollo Bay for that night.
Our daughter and future son-law stayed in a wonderful four star hotel in Apollo Bay when they went on their Great Ocean Road tour the previous year so they recommended it to us as a good place to find excellent accommodation at relatively low prices.
But their trip was in autumn / winter which is low season in Australia.
January and February are as high season as you can get and as Great Ocean Road tours are among the most popular holidays on the continent, finding availability in relatively low-cost hotels at that time of year is virtually impossible.
Our daughter paid less for her four star hotel the previous May than we paid to stay at one of the worst hotels we have ever stayed in anywhere not just in Australia,
Don’t bother with Apollo Bay at all if you’re driving this route in summer. Head straight for Lorne the day after; there is so much more to see and do there and there are more hotel options.
Besides, Lorne is not that much further to drive than Apollo Bay.
On reflection, we should have stayed in Port Fairy that night then checked into a hotel in Port Campbell the following night so we could have spent that afternoon and all of the next day visiting the many beauty spots on the Great Ocean Road and not having to rush to check into a grotty hotel in a town which has comparatively little to offer.
The wonders on view on the Great Ocean Road are truly overwhelming. Allow yourself time to absorb the beauty and the atmosphere of your surroundings. See them at different times of day. At least one sunset should be a must.
We left Port Fairy at about 3:00 pm that day and drove cross country towards Apollo Bay, totally bypassing Port Campbell.
We found ourselves back on the coastal road a few miles out of Port Campbell and in the first traffic jam we had ever experienced since first arriving in Australia the previous December.
You will experience mass tourism on the Great Ocean Road so occasional traffic jams are inevitable.
The reason for this particular jam soon became clear to us. We were just a few hundred meters from one of the most beautiful natural wonders on that extraordinary coastal road.
The Twelve Apostles
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Apostles_(Victoria)
"The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of Port Campbell National Park.
Their proximity to one another has made the site a popular tourist destination, attracting visitors from all over the world.
Seven of the original eight stacks remain standing after one collapsed in July 2005.
Though the view from the promontory by the Twelve Apostles never included twelve stacks, additional stacks (which were not originally considered part of the Apostles group) are located to the west within the national park".
"The Twelve Apostles were formed by erosion.
The harsh and extreme weather conditions from the Southern Ocean gradually erode the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then become arches that eventually collapse, leaving rock stacks up to 50 m high.
The stacks are always susceptible to further erosion from waves and strong winds.
In July 2005, a 50-metre-tall stack collapsed, leaving seven standing at the Twelve Apostles viewpoint.
Due to wave action eroding the cliffs, existing headlands are expected to become new limestone stacks in the future.
The stacks were originally known as the Pinnacles, and the Sow and Pigs (or Sow and Piglets, with Muttonbird Island being the Sow and the smaller rock stacks being the Piglets).
The formation's name was made official as the Twelve Apostles, despite only ever having had eight stacks.
In 2002, the Port Campbell Professional Fishermens Association attempted to block the creation of the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park at the Twelve Apostles site.
The association approved of a later decision by the Victorian government to prohibit seismic exploration at the site by Benaris Energy, believing such exploration would harm marine life".
Each of these apostles has its own very distinctive name which changes whenever the stacks are eroded further or change shape and configuration.
Some of the names we heard when we were there included:
Razorback, Loch Ard Gorge, Island Archway, Thunder Cave, Bakers Oven Rock, Sentinel Rocks, the Grotto and London Bridge.
On that afternoon, quite by chance, we found ourselves in a traffic queue of coaches, mini buses, private cars and motorcycles of all shapes and sizes waiting to be admitted to the parking area for the Loch Ard Gorge and Razorback, considered to be the most striking of the limestone formations that remain on the Great Ocean Road.
Eventually we did manage to park our car and walk with what felt like thousands of tourists from every corner of the globe to the general viewing point where we were able to see the full magnitude of this extraordinary geological marvel.
The Wikipedia entry for this states that: "the gorge is named after the clipper ship Loch Ard, which ran aground on nearby Muttonbird Island on 1 June 1878, approaching the end of a three-month journey from England to Melbourne".
It claims that: "of the fifty-four passengers and crew, only two survived: Tom Pearce, a 19 year old ship's apprentice, and Eva Carmichael, an Irishwoman emigrating with her family, also 19 years of age.
According to memorials at the site, Pearce was washed ashore, and rescued Carmichael from the water after hearing her cries for help.
Pearce then proceeded to climb out of the gorge to raise the alarm to locals who immediately set into plan a rescue attempt.
After three months in Australia Carmichael returned to Europe. Four of her family members drowned that night. Pearce was hailed as a hero, and continued his life living until age 49. He is buried in Southampton, England".
The Razorback is the limestone islet which forms one part of Loch Ard Gorge.
It was carved away from the cliff by centuries of surf pounding against it relentlessly.
Massive cracks in its structure are clearly visible in two places, so it is preparing to collapse into sea stacks as many others have done already.
It is likely to take hundreds of years, but eventually a cave will be formed, followed by an arch and once that crumbles, huge rock columns will be created.
It is a cycle that has been repeated for 15 to 20 million years.
It was like being present at the filming of a 'Geography in Action' documentary and I couldn't help wondering how fortunate local school children are to have a site such as this as a potential field trip location.
It certainly beats the river Thames mud flats we were taken to in London's docklands in the late 1960s.
The Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch located between Anglesea and Lorne. The Arch is a permanent memorial not only to those returning WW1 soldiers who built it but also to the thousands of other young men from all over the world who did not return home at all. (Photo courtesy of greatoceanroad.info)
Loch Ard Gorge, Great Ocean Road
Razorback - Great Ocean Road
Great Ocean Road Limestone stacks
Loch Ard Gorge Beach
Twelve Apostles area of Great Ocean Road
Photo from viewing platform at Loch Ard Gorge
"No eating in the bedrooms"
Having endured an unpleasant traffic jam, a struggle to find a parking space in the very busy car park and the hustle and bustle of mass tourism, we were certainly not going to rush our viewing of this magnificent natural wonder.
Even when we finally managed to reach the platform, it took quite a long time to gain access to a decent viewing spot at this site.
For the first time since New Year's Eve in Sydney and Australia Day in Perth, we found ourselves vying with numerous others for the few spots at the front of the strategically placed platforms so as to have a slightly clearer view of the monumental wonders before us.
This was mass tourism on a scale that we had never seen before in Australia.
We had a taster of it at the Penfold's winery in the Barossa Valley but this was multiple times more intense than that.
There were at least five large coaches in that small car park that afternoon and probably about 10 mini buses.
Then there were the 'self drive' tourists in hire cars such as ourselves.
There were fewer young families than we had encountered in Sydney and Perth as children had returned to school after their long summer break so I dread to think what it would have been like the week before or at the weekend.
I started chatting with a pleasant couple from New Zealand at one point who explained that they and quite a few others were cruise passengers from two large liners which had stopped in Melbourne for one or more nights so they were invited to sign up for one of several 'Great Ocean Road' coach or mini bus tours of various lengths, group sizes and prices.
She explained that the full day tour they were on had programmed the Apostles sites in the afternoon and evening as the morning itineraries included beach time, a winery and a chocolaterie. Besides, Great Ocean Road sunset viewings were included on their programme so they couldn't come too early.
Taking all that into consideration we decided not to visit any other sites on this day but to return early the next morning and see as much as we could then.
Our journey to Apollo Bay took us almost two hours, (even though it was meant to just take one), so leaving when we did was definitely the right thing to do.
In an ideal world we would have booked a room in a hotel within walking distance of one these magnificent sights then we could have spent the evening on a spectacular beach with our books, our final bottle of Barossa sparking and revelled in the changing colours of the famous Great Ocean Road sunset.
But that was not to be. We arrived at our hotel in Apollo Bay just after sunset and made our way to reception to check in.
We had booked to stay in a hotel called the Brewhouse which had been recommended by several online sites as a "clean if basic low cost hotel option".
As both the Gariwerd Motel in Halls Gap and the Guichen Bay Motel in Robe had been described in similar ways, we expected the Brewhouse to be of a similar standard.
That was a big mistake.
To us, this didn't feel like a hotel at all but a low quality, quite dirty hostel.
In fact we had stayed in hostels before which were of a far higher standard than this.
Check in was at the bar in the pub area of the 'hotel'. The barman / hotel receptionist was not one for conversation and wit.
He handed us a key, gave us a leaflet with a set of rules and guided us to a door which led to the rented rooms.
His parting comment to us was simply: "no eating in the rooms".
The fact that he had to say that at all was proof enough that this was a regular occurrence in this establishment.
In fact we saw evidence of it as soon as we entered our extremely small 'double' rooms
We found a half eaten cracker on our bedside table and biscuit crumbs on the floor near our bed.
There was also a small bin bag perched on our sink which was full of food wrappers and banana skins.
As it was perched on the basin I was under the illusion that it might have been toiletries which is why I opened it at all.
Oh how we chortled at that thought later that evening.
The restaurant was due to close in ten minutes but judging by the state of our rooms we would certainly not have risked having a meal there.
At least our Bondi flat and the fragrant Airbnb house in Ascot were very low cost options. This was NOT.
We paid more for this than we did for any other hotel that week and this is also the only one which was non refundable, even in the event of cancellation due to wildfires which had been an issue in that area a few weeks before.
Of course we may have just been there on a day when the usual, friendly and helpful check in staff were off sick and the cleaners were having a bad day, but it was NOT a good experience for us.
What didn't help was that we had received that wonderful welcome email from the landlady at the Gariwerd the day before which definitely enhanced our short stay in the Grampians. This was decidedly NOT the Gariwerd. No one welcomed us on this occasion. The contrast between them couldn't have been more pronounced.
One positive thing I can say about the Brewhouse is that the bed and pillows were very comfortable and the sheets were of excellent quality cotton; but the shared toilets, the basins in the rooms, the floors, the bins, the windows, the check-in experience, did all leave much to be desired..........and some.
At £88 a night per room, we expected far more than that.
We didn't find any restaurants at all that were still open in Apollo Bay that evening so we raided our emergency food supplies in the boot of our car and had a makeshift picnic in a little park opposite our hotel.
Fortunately we still had a few bottles of our Barossa wine store left which we drank with gusto that evening in the cool night air, after which we treated ourselves to a nightcap at the local pub, so our time in those rooms was minimal.
We set our alarm for 6:30 am the following morning and were happy to leave the Brewhouse at 7:30.
By 9:30 we were already back at the Apostles sites and this time we had them all to ourselves as the cruise tourists would not be there for another few hours at least.
Leaving Apollo Bay early was definitely the right thing to do.
Considering we had booked to stay in the wrong hotel in the wrong town, all was fine again at that point and we were all set for another good day.
Our "double" room at our "hotel" in Apollo Bay
Basin in our bedroom in Apollo Bay (with bag of "toiletries'" included 🤣
Apollo Bay in the evening light
Impromptu picnic in park area opposite our 'hotel'
Wednesday 5 February
"There are places on earth where we can catch a glimpse of heaven"
Anthony Douglas Williams
The Bay of Islands
When we left Apollo Bay early that morning we set course for the Bay of Islands.
This feature is not part of the Apostles group but it was as imposing and spectacular as any of the Apostle stacks we saw that day.
It stretches over 32 kms between the towns of Peterborough and Warrnambool and combines coastal cliff climbs with dazzling ocean views.
Lookout areas with parking are provided at the Bay of Martyrs, the Bay of Islands, Three Mile Beach and Childers Cove.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Islands_Coastal_Park
What was extraordinary about this particular site was that we appeared to have it entirely to ourselves.
No coaches, no mini-buses and just one other car, yet this site was no less impressive than that which we had seen the previous day.
Even allowing for the fact that cruise tourists from Melbourne wouldn't be in the area until early afternoon, we had expected it to be a little busier than it was.
The other car in the parking area must have belonged to a young man on the viewing platform with us who was photographing it from every possible angle with a drone camera which he was controlling remotely.
It was a very noisy drone camera and frightened off all the aquatic birds from whichever area it flew over which we thought was rather inconsiderate, considering this is a protected nature reserve.
We dropped several hints about signs we had seen nearby forbidding people from flying drones in these reserves for all the obvious reasons, but as our hints fell on very deaf ears, we eventually decided to proceed to our next spot.
But that aside, the Bay of Islands location we stopped at was peaceful and uncluttered as well as being stunningly beautiful.
It should definitely be included on your tourist itinerary if you embark on a trip of this kind.
Viewpoint at Bay of Islands
Bay of Islands rock cliff
Bay of Island Nature Reserve
Bay of Islands cliff view
Stunning Bay of Island view
Limestone stacks at Bay of Islands
Stunning isolated beach at Bay of Islands
Bay of Islands
The Grotto
Our next stop on this iconic Ocean Road drive was The Grotto.
As the Grotto sits at the end of the Twelve Apostles tourist route, it has a tendency to be overlooked by many of the established organised tours, which is a shame as we found it to be one of the quirkiest and most impressive of all the Apostle sites we visited that day.
The Grotto is essentially a sinkhole, similar in nature to the sinkhole we had seen in Mount Gambier the previous week.
In the case of the Grotto, limestone cliffs had fallen away to meet the receding cliff line.
It is an incredibly surreal sight and is well worth a visit if you’re on a tour of this kind.
The Grotto has been described by several online tourist sites as:
"The most enchanting of all the rock formations in this part of Australia.
Part-blowhole, part-archway, part-cave, it offers a peaceful place to enjoy the sea views and soak in the wonderful things nature is capable of.
Standing about halfway up the cliff from the sea level, the geological formation is reachable via a decked staircase that leads down from the viewing platform at the top.
You can either view the wonder from above, or head down and explore it at eye-level.
Inside, the Grotto is filled with smooth boulders and serene rock pools that have been carved out of the limestone over the course of many centuries.
For the best view, look into the Grotto from the lower viewing platform, where you can see the horizon, the pools, and the jutting rock formations all in one go.
Though the location is open all year round, there are some weather conditions that are better for viewing The Grotto in than others.
The temperatures and weather conditions in the area change constantly and, on some occasions, going down to explore The Grotto at eye-level can be dangerous, particularly if it is windy and the tide is high.
For ideal conditions, head to The Grotto at sunset or sunrise, where you can catch a glimpse of the warm Australian sun through the archway of the rock formation, where it reflects gold and pink off the smooth rock pools inside.
Summer is the best time to visit for prime weather conditions, but the landmark remains an incredible must-see throughout the year".
We were there in summer but we did not see the Grotto at sunrise or sunset nor were we there on a particularly sunny day, but the views from the cave were truly glorious.
This may not be the perfect location to sit on a beach and read your book for a day or even for a a few hours, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful natural wonders we saw on our Great Ocean Road Drive that week.
Glorious cliff side view whilst walking down to the Grotto
View of sea, rocks and sky from the Grotto
Sinkhole at the Grotto site on the Great Ocean Road
The Grotto
Viewing platforms at the Grotto
Stunning cliff views above the Grotto
London Bridge has fallen down
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Arch
Our next stop was at the London Arch site which used to be known as London Bridge.
The bridge section of this stack had been created by a gradual process of erosion of the original limestone cliff which until 1990 formed a complete double-span natural bridge from the cliff to the far end of the stack which protruded into the sea like a natural limestone pier.
The span closer to the shoreline collapsed unexpectedly on 15 January 1990, leaving two tourists (Kelli Harrison and David Darrington) stranded on the outer span before being rescued by police helicopter.
Fortunately no one was injured but the event clearly demonstrated how these stacks can suddenly collapse and / or change configuration without any prior warning.
If you do visit these sites and I highly recommend that you do, it is important to know that although it is a known geological fact that these limestone structures will collapse into the sea at some point, it is impossible to know exactly when that will happen.
As Kelli Harrison and David Darrington discovered of that fateful January day in 1990, it could even happen when an unsuspecting tourist is admiring and photographing them, never imagining that they will make history just by being there at that exact moment in time
London Arch, formerly London Bridge
Beautiful stretch of beach at the London Arch site
London Bridge stack prior to January 1990 (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
Now you see it, now you don't
We spent the rest of that afternoon driving from beach to beach so as to see as many of these beautiful natural wonders as possible.
We admired The Arch, a monumental natural rock arch protruding from its limestone cliff into the sea.
We returned to Loch Ard Gorge as our friend wanted to walk down to the beach there and we wanted to have another viewing of the central stacks at the Gorge, having discovered that they were formerly known as Island Archway but collapsed into the sea in 2005.
One of our friends in Sydney had listed the Island Archway as definitely one to see as it was a favourite of hers due to its imposing location at Loch Ard Gorge. She clearly hadn't heard that it had collapsed into two stacks and was now not an archway at all.
We travelled to this wonderful area of Australia in February 2020. Many of these limestone formations may be totally different in five or ten years time and as a result, the names I have listed here are likely to have been changed. But for us that was part of their charm.
An ever-changing constantly evolving beautiful, geological wonder.
Truly magical
We had planned to find a secluded beach where we could spend a relaxing afternoon and watch a famous Great Ocean Road sunset but as the sky was overcast and rain was expected, we decided to make our way to the town of Lorne which is where we would be staying that evening and night.
The Arch
How the Arch formation looks from above
Natural limestone Arch on Great Ocean Road, Victoria
Eroding Limestone cliffs at the Arch
Loch Ard Gorge with former Island Arch stacks in the centre
Island Archway before it collapsed in 2005 (photo courtesy of paradise-fall.com)
How the Island Archway looks now
Dazzling Great Ocean Road beach at Loch Ard Gorge
The beach at Loch Ard Gorge (photo courtesy of Mrs S Mitchell)
Limestone stacks of the beach at Loch Ard Gorge (photo courtesy of Mrs S Mitchell)
Limestone stack on the Great Ocean Road
Beautiful vistas everywhere on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria
The Great Ocean Road, Victoria
Cape Otway Lighthouse and Beacon
https://www.lightstation.com/explore-cape-otway/indigenous-culture/
Although the weather had been mostly cool and overcast since we left Adelaide the previous Sunday, we had enjoyed occasional warm sunny spells from our arrival in Robe on the Sunday evening up until mid afternoon on the 5th February.
Sadly it changed quite dramatically after that so our itinerary had to be adapted accordingly.
As I explained previously, we abandoned our Great Ocean Road 'sunset viewing' plans and set course for Lorne with the intention of stopping at any interesting sites en route.
Our friend had read about the Cape Otway Lighthouse which she suggested as our first stop after leaving the Apostles site earlier that afternoon. She was right.
We all found our few hours there extremely diverting and although the weather worsened steadily throughout the afternoon, it did not detract from our time there in the least.
"The Cape Otway Lighthouse is the oldest surviving lighthouse on mainland Australia.
It was built in 1848 and it perches on towering sea cliffs where the Bass Strait and the Southern Ocean collide.
Hundreds of lives were lost in shipwrecks off Cape Otway – a sad but fascinating history which led to the building of the Lightstation on the coast at the foot of the impenetrable forests of the Otways.
For many thousands of 19th century migrants, who spent months travelling to Australia by ship, Cape Otway was their first sight of land after leaving their European homes.
Charles La Trobe, the then superintendent of Port Phillip, who considered himself an amateur explorer, made three overland attempts at reaching Cape Otway before finding success in 1846 thanks to the help of the local Indigenous people and settlers.
After being defeated by impenetrable forests, rivers and deep ravines La Trobe knew his overland path was not suitable for transporting materials to build the lighthouse, but he was confident in the site he had chosen.
La Trobe wrote: “Good building stone, lime, and water, are abundant and accessible.
A rise, about a musket shot from the brink of the precipitous face of the Southern point to the promontory, furnishes as it appears to me an admirable site … it commands an unimpeded view of the whole of the deep bight …”
Lightkeepers were charged with maintaining the light – shining a “Beacon of Hope” onto the Bass Strait – to prevent any further loss of life.
The Head Lightkeeper kindled the light at sunset and was on duty until 10pm.
Assistants were in charge of the light from 10pm until sunrise, in two watches.
Their chores included collecting firewood, and carting home supplies over kilometres of rough terrain.
They were also charged with painting and repairing the buildings, caring for stock and the lighthouse vegetable garden, as well as anything else deemed necessary by the Head Lightkeeper"
We opted for their 'heritage trail' tickets which took us to their "meticulously restored Telegraph Station, built in 1859, which linked the mainland to Tasmania with a sub-sea telegraph cable – a major feat of technology in its day.
Along the trail you can step into the world of past Lightkeepers and visit the original Keepers lodgings and workshop constructed in 1848.
The Assistant Lightkeepers cottage (built in 1859) has been converted into a café and has, on loan from the Maritime Museum of Victoria a display of a series of paintings of ships that sailed past or were wrecked along this dangerous coastline.
Continuing along the heritage trail, one can learn about the Lightstation’s secret war history through artefacts and displays in a radar bunker.
This was built in 1942 after a US ship was sunk by a German mine off the Cape.
During World War II, up to 50 men were stationed at the Lightstation to protect the coastline".
Sadly we arrived too late in the afternoon for an Indigenous Cultural History Tour but Cape Otway Lightstation publicly acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land this site is on today,
Wherever we travelled in Australia, we witnessed similar acknowledgements and often apologies to indigenous groups in those areas for the brutal treatment they endured at the hands of the early European colonisers and settlers
Cape Otway states on its website under this section:
"We acknowledge our gratitude that we share this land today, our sorrow at some of the cost of that sharing and our hope and belief that we can move to a place of equity and partnership together".
"Cape Otway is centrally situated in Gadubanud country, within which there are five celebrated Gundidjs’ (Clans) which are part of the Gundidjmara Language group of south-west Victoria.
At the Lightstation precinct we deliver educational talks focusing on the cultural heritage of the people Indigenous to Cape Otway.
Through this avenue we aim to share educational insights into the history of a rich, ancient and continuing culture.
Today the Gundidjmara people are the traditional custodians of Gadubanud lands.
The Gadubanud people of this land were completely displaced or killed during European Settlement of the area until there were none remaining.
But despite that the Gadubanud and other Indigenous people retain a firm connection to these places through strong ancestral links".
It was regrettable for us that we were not able to participate in one of their Indigenous Culture tours. I would have certainly liked to do that. This will definitely be on our list if we are able to visit this extraordinary area of Australia again one day in the future
Arriving at Cape Otway Lighthouse
Cape Otway Lighthouse
View from the top of Cape Otway Lighthouse
Site of many shipwrecks where numerous early settlers perished after months at sea
Shipwreck memorial sculpture at Otway Lighthouse
Views of surroundings from Cape Otway Lighthouse
Treacherous coastline at Cape Otway Lighthouse location
Café area at Cape Otway Lighthouse in former Assistant Lightkeepers Dwelling
Marriners Lookout and Apollo Bay
As we needed to drive through Apollo Bay to reach our hotel in Lorne we decided to go to Marriners Lookout, a viewing area high above the town which purported to offer glorious, sweeping vistas of the coastline and surrounding countryside below.
It was not wrong. The views of Apollo Bay's beautiful, long stretch of beach were exquisite.
We had not seen the beach when we stayed In Apollo Bay the previous evening nor did we know about the many walking trails in the area that led to these wonderful viewing spots where you could really appreciate the town's beautiful beaches as well as the green, lush woodland of the Otway National Park.
I later read in Wikipedia that southern right whales and on occasion even humpback whales can be seen in these waters during the winter months when they settle there mainly to breed, to bear their calves, and to rear them in the warmer, calm waters of South Australia during their migration season.
We did not see any whales ourselves as we were there at the wrong time of year sadly but we were pleased to have had this very positive experience of Apollo Bay after our unpleasant accommodation one the previous evening.
Our daughter and her fiancé claimed that their sojourn in Apollo Bay was one of their best Great Ocean Road stop-overs; having seen the town from a completely new perspective, I could now see how pleasant a short break there could actually be.
So do add Marriners Lookout and Apollo Bay's stunning stretch of beach to your Great Ocean Road travel itinerary but just be sure that you book better accommodation than we did if you also decide to stay there.
Beautiful walk up to Marriners Lookout in Apollo Bay
Trail walk through the Otway National Park to Marriners Point Apollo Bay
Otway National Park Trail walk Apollo Bay
Stunning Apollo Bay coastline view from Marriners Lookout
Mornington Peninsula view from Marriners Lookout Apollo Bay
Beautiful stretch of sandy beach in Apollo Bay
Southern Ocean view from Marriners point where whales can be seen during the winter months
The Southern Ocean Apollo Bay