Going Out The Door

After arriving in Apollo Bay, we had a quiet evening having dinner at the local brew pub, where we ran into fellow travelers, some of them from Cleveland! A small world, indeed. Went back to our apartment and spent the rest of the evening on the deck marveling at the clear skies, looking at stars we’ve never seen before. The place we were staying was somewhat in the country, which made for very dark skies, but close enough that we could still fall asleep to the sound of the ocean.

The next morning we headed out for another day of exploring the Great Ocean Road with our destination being the 12 Apostles–a group of sandstone formations just off the coast. They used to be called the Sow and Piglets, but picked up the current name some years ago. There were never actually 12 of them, but a couple have apparently collapsed into the ocean in the not too distant past, so there are only seven now.

After the Apostles, we meandered back and stopped at the Cape Otway Lighthouse, considered to be one of the countries most important. It was the primary tie from the mainland to Tasmania, and a way of letting Melbourne know that ships were on the way. Like everything else, it was full of beautiful and dramatic views.

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We did learning something disturbing about the koalas here. We had noticed a large number of trees all along the coastal areas that were dead, but weren’t sure what had killed them. Drought? Disease? No, it was koalas. These were eucalyptus trees, ones favored by the cuddly critters. Unfortunately, the koalas ate all of the leaves, killing the trees and thus themselves (from starvation) in the process. According to the docent at the Lighthouse, this happened about 5 years ago and hundreds of the poor koalas were just dropping dead out of the trees. It has taken them a while to repopulate, so spotting them in the trees had everyone pulling off to get photos.

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The next day we had a leisurely drive to Melbourne to drop off the car, occasionally taking dirt road detours and ending up at some lovely spots, such as Stevenson Falls. Then, back to the big city.