09 Great Ocean Road - Day 2 - Otway Forests and Waterfalls drive

Wallabies or Kangaroos?

We started off with a drive towards the Beauchamp Falls. The road was something else, a lot of twists and turns and at least two 330 degrees turns. There was a section called Turtons Track which was really crazy.  I was literally turning from left to right, and then right to left, and then the other way all over again.  Check it out on Google Map! On our way, we came across three wallabies (at least we thought they were), one of them stood around for a while posing for David.

Beauchamp Falls

We arrived at the parking lot of the Beauchamp Falls and was surprised to find people camping there, apparently it is a legitimate campsite. The 1.5 hr hike in the temperate rainforest was really pleasant. There was a breeze, but not windy as in the last few days. Temperature was in the high teens and was best for the hike. The path was wide and covered with dried vegetation. The best was no rocks on the path, so I could look around while walking and did not need to pay much attention to the ground. The ferns were huge and most were taller than me.  There were also the mountain ash, which could grow up to 100 meters tall. Since the canopy was quite thick, we did not get much sun on the path. We saw a red belly bird on the way too, not sure if David got a picture of it. The waterfall was small and was just so so, but it was quite picturesque.  The walk was much more interesting.

just to give you an idea
of how high up we are

We decided to skip the next waterfall and went straight to the Treetop walk. It took about 2km each way to do the walk. They had signs providing information about the rainforest and the different layers.   And we learned about the three main types of trees in the area - myrtle beech, mountain ash and blackwood.

We then took a detour out to Johanna Beach. Most of the beaches here are not good for swimming due to the high waves, but they are pretty. The beach was large, with very fine sand, and totally deserted. I could stay and watch the waves for hours.

hollow Myrtle Beech

Back to the original itinerary for a fern forest walk in Maits Rest. It was amazing and we enjoyed this one a lot, even thought it was the third rainforest walk for today. There were a lot more ferns, and the myrtle beech seems older. They were huge, almost sequoia type huge. A lot of the really big ones had hollow base, I could walk inside some of them. This was an easy and rewarding 1km walk.

big ferns

Dinner was next before the glow worm and koalas. We saw this fast food type place selling seafood yesterday and decided to give it a try. You could pick and choose (individual scallop, shrimp, fish, etc.) or get combos. I ended up with a grilled barramundi and David had a seafood platter, and they were actually OK.

After a 20-minutes drive on a twisty road during sunset, we arrived at Kennett River and drove on this Grey River Road to look for rare birds and koalas. The entrance to this unpaved road had a sign saying "local traffic only". We pretended we did not see it and drove up the hill anyway. After about 1.5km, the road was blocked saying "road closed". So no glow worms and we looked around for birds and koalas. Luckily we spotted one sleeping and one eating up in the trees, and so the trip was not a complete waste.

We went back to the motel to finish last night's dessert (flourless pear and almond cake) and it was still too sweet.