Despite what the map claims or a Victorian might tell you, the Great Ocean Road really only goes from Torquay to Apollo Bay. After that it goes inland behind Cape Otway and mostly stays there, apart from the satellite stretch around Port Campbell, home to the many Sydney Unis worth of formations that are some of the major attractions along the road. (This is all that's left of London Bridge since its collapse in 1990.) By the time one gets to Princetown it's just another name for the big fat Prince's Highway (A1) running between Mount Gambier and Geelong.
Walked a bit around the Cape. Drove up to the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk, but at twenty dollars for an hour-and-a-half, signposted at the absolute last minute, I gave it a miss. Drove further down the dirt road into the National Park for a free walk to the Triplet Falls through some quite beautiful rainforest. It pays to study the guide a bit more — if I'd gone to Lake Elizabeth there's a chance I might have seen a platypus on this trip.
Lunch in Port Campbell, where one can park right on the beach. Tried snorkelling there but failed to sight any fish. For the first time this year I donned my spring suit, though it turned out to be superfluous.
Stopped off at a random subset of the limestone formations. Supposedly there's a penguin colony at London Bridge (now Arch) but I wasn't there at the right time to see them.
Took the back road to Warrnambool, ended up at the mouth of the Hopkins River at Logan's Beach. It's a big town and lacks the holiday / country feel of the others on the Great Ocean Road. Tried swimming at the main beach but didn't last long due to the seaweed and ennui.
Drove on to Port Fairy, took the cheapest caravan park in the book from the info centre, the Catalina Park. It said fifteen bucks but they wanted twenty-two (the discrepancy due to it being the high season), we settled on twenty. For me it's just paying to take a shower and perhaps use the cooking facilities. Cheap means its right on the highway, so I've gone from the sublime surf-crashing-into-the-cliff to the truckers grinding their gears into town.
Am incubating Peodair and Rachel's flu quite successfully. Spoke with Mum and Dad briefly on the phone; Dad had had an adventure getting back from Inverell to Orange on public transport.
