Today we celebrated  Chris' birthday....an afternoon drink at Hop Nation in Footscray

.....enjoyed some delicious nibbles at home....

.....watched Chris and Michelle make pasta for dinner

....with a delicious salad... I hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as I did.

 

Saying goodbye to Mounts Beach in Marengo (next beach to Apollo Bay)...it was a beautiful still morning.

Looking back to the heart of Apollo Bay.

Enormous seaweed....we have seen it at almost every beach we have visited.

A brief stop at Lorne for a coffee and a walk along the beach...

The Great Ocean Road...

Next stop...Aireys Inlet...Split Point

The Split Point lighthouse stands above the Eagle Rock Marine Sanctuary ....

View from Split Point

Out to dinner tonight with Chris and Michelle to their favourite Thai restaurant..."Fresh Chilli". The food was oh so tasty!

 

Less than 50 metres from our little chalet, we spotted this koala...on the verge...we were so excited.

Our first stop today was The Gables Lookout....after an easy walk through a Casuarina grove we had a spectacular view over the ocean and the reefs. This is one of the highest sea cliffs on mainland Australia.

Wreck Beach on the Great Ocean Road....There are two anchors on the beach which belonged to the "Marie Gabrielle" and the "Fiji".....reminders of how dangerous these waters are.

There were 350 steps down to the beach...not only were the anchors interesting, there were many glorious little rock pools and plenty of shells and beautiful rocks on the sand.

If someone asked me what my favourite thing to do was, I would say ...beach combing....I am at my happiest when I am at a beach!

Another beach further along the coast also had steps down to the water....the Gibson Steps....it is the first sightseeing stop in the Port Campbell National Park....the steps lead down to the first of the famous Twelve Apostles.

East of Gibson steps...

Amazing....

....the steps we had to climb down (and up again)....

So wonderful to be up so close to these natural wonders...

Further down the Great Ocean Road we viewed these structures from the coastal lookout platforms...

Port Campbell...a quiet little town west of The Twelve Apostles..

I love shells....

What a fabulous day we had!

 

Today we headed inland to seek out some waterfalls in the Great Otway National Park. The Mountain Ash trees were towering above all the other vegetation. 

Beauchamp Falls

They were stunning and the walk into the falls was quite challenging but beautiful and well worth it.

Pete looking up at the falls...

Deep into the forest were the Myrtle Beech trees, they too were very tall..I found them to be really beautiful when you looked up to the sky.

The finger nail sized leaves from the Myrtle Beech trees.

A small forest of Californian Redwood trees that were planted in the park in 1936...

...they were gigantic!

Walking towards the Triplet Falls in the Great Otway National Park, more beautiful ferns and trees...

One of the three waterfalls that make up the Triplet Falls....

On our way home to Apollo Bay...stopped at this look out near Glenaire to admire the coastline.

We drove through large areas of farm land today as well as the National Park...it too was beautiful.

 

Pete and I explored Apollo Bay this morning...we found the golf course and it was a wee bit windy, look at that flag!

This is the Barham River running into the ocean.

We were so excited to see the blue sky, the forecast was for cloudy skies.

Rather unusual rock formations....I just love peeking into the rock pools.

This is the view up the coast from Apollo Bay beach...

These conifers are very popular along the coast ...I think they are such majestic trees.

Apollo Bay beach...the tide is out...lovely to walk along.

Our accomodation looks even more splendid with the sunshine coming in.

Mait's Rest in Great Otway National Park...a glorious temperate rain forest with beautiful ferns and giant rainforest trees, myrtle beech and mountain ash.

There were lots of fungi on the forest floor but I have never seen anything like this one...it was as big as a bread and butter plate.

This I hope shows how beautiful the drive in the Great Otway National Park was...

 The Cape Otway lighthouse keeper's cottage.

Cape Otway lighthouse.

View from the lighthouse looking east...

View from the lighthouse looking west...

View from the lighthouse looking down...

The lighthouse steps...  there were other buildings to see and plenty of history to read about.

Our first little visitor...bird seed was in a jar in our chalet...

...then more...