Day 8: Rocks, rocks, rocks, cheese, chocolate and some tree surfing...

A quick stop in at the Allansford Cheese Factory (the one we tried to visit yesterday) to sample the local produce… favourites were the vintage cheddar and rhubarb and raspberry pickle.

It was then off to the start of the Great Ocean Road. Having waited so long to do this trip, the anticipation was quite high. As you can’t see very much from the road, we stopped in at some of the marked stops and did the short walks to the coast. After about the fifth stop the boys were over it… I guess that this was to be expected since when you are 9 and 12 the novelty of looking at big rocks and rugged coast would fairly easily dissipate!

We had a bit of a laugh when we visited London Bridge and then just a bit down the road we went to look at The Arch which looked peculiarly like the other side of London Bridge (just from a different angle)!!!!! Of all the stops it was probably ‘The Grotto’ that was the most beautiful and where you got closest to the amazing formations. After traversing the bush path across to the coast, we walked down the stairs until we were close to beach level. From there you looked out to sea through a large oval hole which had formed in the rock. As the larger waves of each set crashed in, they washed water up and over the bottom edge of the hole into the pool of calm water. Simply amazing to see the contrast between forceful, powerful waves smashing against the rock to the calm waters swirling gently in the pool – all within metres of one another. I must note however, that as awe-inspiring as this vision of natural wonder was, it wasn’t long before Bryn was obtaining just as much enjoyment out of squelching handfuls of clay that he’d discovered in the embankment behind us…. By the time we left his hands were a nice hue of terracotta… and I once again sang the praises of baby wipes!

Upon reaching the world re-known 12? 8? 6? Apostles we were amazed at just how many tourists there were just at this one spot – particularly since up the road there were some amazing sites but with hardly anyone there. Once again, the beauty and iconic significance was lost on the boys, but it was pretty amazing to see in real life. Luckily the sun came out for us so that we could see all the beautiful colours in the rock, and those earthy tones contrasted with the blues and whites of the foaming wild ocean and sky. Although there used to be 12 formations, and apparently there are now 8, it was a bit difficult to identify just how many apostles are left – not that it mattered. When I asked the boys what they thought the 12 Apostles were I got some interesting responses such as ‘the first people to explore this area’ or ‘the first people to travel across Australia’… when prompted that it had something to do with religion I got ’12 gods’… you can see then why I am a little concerned about just how Khi is going to cope in the Catholic Secondary education system with such little religious knowledge, YIKES!

From Port Campbell we headed inland to do a bit of the 12 Apostles Gourmet Food Trail. First stop was G.O.R.G.E Chocolates which is a small family business run from a shed on their property. The European style chocolate was divine and we indulged in a dark chocolate mocha, white hot chocolate and dark hot chocolate as well as purchasing some small packs of dark chocolate, white chocolate raspberry licorice pieces and chocolate coated aniseed rings… we figured we had better get a little bit of chocolate onboard just in case the bunny doesn’t find us tonight since we aren’t at home… The garden around the homestead was fantastic – a mix of veges intertwined with cottage garden. I had to take a few happy snaps it was so picturesque. It reminded me very much of Jude and Simone’s gardens which I am always in awe of!

A little further down the road we did a full cheese tasting at the Apostle Whey Cheese farm including recording which cheeses we all liked on our tasting sheet. We learned that about 5 of the cheeses we tasted all came from the base ‘gouda’ cheese. The smoked cheese was interesting as it is made using the smoke created by burning eucalypts and other local foliage so it had a distinct taste not dissimilar to the smell of campfire cooked food. We purchased our favourites which were the Camembert, Blue and Garlic Gouda and then set off back towards the Great Otway National Park. I was also impressed by the metal sculptures in the grounds of the cheese farm – reminds me of a mission I have to enrol in a metal sculpture/welding course… I will have to make sure that moves up the ‘to do’ list!

Our mission had been to do the Otway Fly Treetop Adventure but the information suggested it would take about 3.5 hrs if you wanted to do both the tree surfing and also ziplining. We thought we would just call in and have a look to see if we should try and come back early next week or to just do just tree surfing at a place on the other side of the harbour late next week (which doesn’t have ziplining). You can imagine our delight when we arrived at 3.10 to be told that they had put on a special zip tour at 3.15 and we could all get on….whoo hooo….the good old ‘Langridge Luck’ at work again heh?

We quickly paid, stashed our stuff into a locker, borrowed some enclosed shoes for me and convinced Khi he wouldn’t freeze in his shorts…. It was then into the briefing room to get fitted out with our harnesses and go over the safety features and rules… then before we knew it we were walking through the rainforest to and then climbing a spiral staircase to a platform 10m above ground and then ‘zipping’ in our harnesses across steel cables from cloud (platforms that circle a tree) to cloud at a height of 30m above the forest floor. There were 8 cloud stations which gave us 6 ‘flights’ with the longest cable (thus flight) being about 120m long… very scary when initially getting off the cloud, but once you were away – how exhilarating! It was spectacular to be up so high, and once again, luck was on our side as the sun came out and the light filtering through the tall straight ghostly trees was breathtaking. There were also two suspension bridges which we traversed at our own speed which gave plenty of time to take in the sound of birds, the smell of the forest and all the lush green tree ferns and trees surrounding us. The guides were fantastic giving us the history of the forest and explaining how every structure had been built by hand including by treeclimbers that climbed adjacent trees and bounced at the top until they had enough of a sway up to reach and hang a rope from the tree chosen to have a cloud built on it . Once that initial rope was in place it was then used to hoist up the necessary building materials. An amazing feat of engineering.

I was so proud of us all – especially Khi who is not usually the biggest fan of extreme activities, particularly those involving heights! If you ever get the chance to do this, I would highly recommend it – very safe and very unique experience. Unfortunately because it was right on 5pm when we finished zipping we missed out on doing the tree walk but really, we didn’t feel like we had missed out as we had actually been up in the trees instead of just looking at them from a footbridge.

Feeling very energised, we bundled ourselves into the car and set of down the windy road to Apollo Bay. By the time we got there it was completely dark and completely packed out with people. We found a nice restaurant called Sandy Feet where we relished succulent steaks, vegetarian lasagne and crunchy almond chicken topped off with frothy milkshakes and a glass of shiraz for me!

After dinner we hit the road again, down the longest, windiest road I can recall… very famous route… you know it – yes, the Great Ocean Road… the only problem was it was pitch black so we couldn’t see a thing! Before long the boys and I nodded off and I was ever grateful for Mark getting us all the way to our accommodation in Queenscliff – safe and sound.

Check-in wasn’t so simple as they had left our cabin keys in a lock box but the gate pass didn’t work…. NOT what you need after such a big day. Luckily one of the managers was doing his late night rounds and was able to issue us with a new one. We were all happy to climb into bed and dream of our treetop flying adventure.

Great Ocean Road