Category: Melbourne, GOR & Grampians

Day 20

Finally another hiking day, but only 10.5 km Pinnacle – Sundial Peak double-loop (recommended). Very nice weather, very relaxing and on quiet trails most of the time (a lot of people at Pinnacles). Lazy meandering between interesting rock formations to lookouts with panoramic views.

Pinnacle-Sundial Peak

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We were rewarded for slow walking through forested part of Sundial Peak trail: we got to watch echidna snouting around on the trail edge. We heard more suspicious sounds coming from the bushes but we saw just one.

Echidna on Sundial Peak trail

We had enough time in the afternoon to visit MacKenzie Falls, we walked down the stairs  to the bottom and a bit along the creek. On the way back, we stopped at Reed’s Lookout for view in opposite direction to what we could see most of the day. We came back to Halls Gap, parked the car and walked again to watch hundreds of kangaroos on the green behind Brambuk Centre. We also saw five emus and a large herd of dear (not native in Australia). Joanna grilled Australian lamb chops and veggies for dinner and Angus beef burgers for lunch next day.

Day 21

Our last day.  We are returning to Melbourne, but on the way we stopped in Ballarat for five-hour visit to Sovereign Hill and Gold Museum (recommended). We liked the open-air museum, despite some doubts and fact that it was built almost entirely from scratch in late ninety-sixties: interesting collection of antiques in reconstructed buildings that once stood in Ballarat. Many of the old machines are still working, although most are powered by electric not steam engines for practical reasons. Demonstrations are interesting and live, not just talking about still objects. Our favorite was wheel making. Costumed guides/instructors were very engaged.

We arrived at MEL around 7 pm, with plenty of time to return rental car and get ready for long flight home via SFO. We drove 1280 km on Victoria leg of our trip.

Ballalrat machines video clips

We started the day by watching horses training on Warrnanbool Beach. We like horses and it was pleasant experience to watch them run, swim and walk on the beach (we are no fans of gambling-driven horse racing). We walked around the Breakwater Rock Pier for a while.

At 10 am we were already in Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve (recommended). For us, it was more like  botanic garden/arborretum-type experience with many easy walks and loops on small volcanic hills, marshland and around crater lakes. With quite a few opportunities to observe animals in natural setting. True, emus are well adapted and some like to check what humans put on their picnic tables. We saw five adults plus nine chicks feeding on the grass (plants).

Emu family in Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve

Visitor Centre is the starting point and picnic site for visitors, but with many crisscrossing trails the place feels relaxing and not crowded. We did not want to join guided tour, but we overheard interesting stories, and followed one group to Fairy Island: the guides know where to find koalas. The Acrobat (as we called it) was the only koala we saw that was literally jumping between branches and climbing up large eucalyptus tree. Tower Hill was one of the nicest places near GOR. We saw 8 koalas!

Koala in Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve

We started driving towards Grampians around 2:30 pm, via Hwy C178-C216, with short coffee stop in Dunkeld (no famous meat pie, Dunkeld Old Bakery and Cafe was already closed). We managed to run-up Piccaninny trail (2.5 km return) for first hike in Grampians and interesting vegetation (grasstrees), different from what we saw next further North. We checked-in Grampians Nest on High Rd (recommended) in Halls Gap and  ran to Brambuk Centre to watch kangaroos before dark on grassy spots along the main street. Our accommodation was great, large one-bedroom apt, large living room and well equipped kitchen, sundeck with gas grill, nice location away from town centre.

Day 17

We dropped-off our friend at William Cooper Justice Centre, but before we left we had coffee and quick conference on what to do next. Getting from Fitzroy to city center at 8:30 on Wednesday  was good driving practice and I learned a couple of Melburnian moves I would not attempt on my own. We exited the city via West Gate Bridge on M1 to Geelong. Our first stop on Great Ocean Road (GOR) was Split Point Lighthouse. We walked around for a while, the place was very crowded, but not overwhelmingly so. Next short stop: Devil’s Elbow Lookout. We spent a bit more time in and around Lorne, first to have a look at Lorne Beach and Erskine River, and then visiting Erskine Falls (short walk) – 10 km drive on paved park road further inland. Teddy’s Lookout with short walk to Lower Landing and Otway Ranges Lookouts came next. Watching koalas at Kennett River (recommended) was our anticipated highlight of the day and we were not disappointed. We spent most of an hour watching lorikeets and  walking along Grey River Rd learning how to spot koalas: we found 11.

Koala at Kennett River

We made another short stop at Cape Patton Lookout, before checking-in The Falls airbnb at Stony Creek on GOR (recommended), our favorite accommodation, 5 km before  Apollo Bay. Great place to stay, high quality, comfortable  and beautiful surroundings. We drove quickly to ☞ Fisherman’s CO-OP restaurant to buy take-out dinner: really good fish and chips basket plus grilled Blue Grenadier, and to watch sunset at Apollo Bay, while we were waiting for our order.

Day 18

We continued west on GOR.  We drove for couple km on Otway Lighthouse Rd as a side trip  (did not have time to go to the lighthouse): the paved park road is very quiet and cuts through eucalyptus forest. We parked on the shoulder, walked for short moment and saw 2 more koalas perched high up in tree crowns. Melba Gully  (recommended) was another nature walk: real tropical rainforest so rich and beautiful we could not believe. Great contrasts to rocky coastline.

Melba Gully

Next few stops were at very popular sites: Gibson Beach (steps were closed which was a bit disappointing, because we wanted to go down to the beach), Twelve Apostoles,  Loch Ard Gorge  with walk down to the beach (recommended), Sherbrook River, Bay of Martyrs (walked on beach a bit), Bay of Islands (walked down to boat launch). At each site we tried to walk all local trails or as many as possible. We spent some more time near Sherbrook River beach  (recommended), just walking around on the rocks watching waves crushing in. Very relaxing place and almost no other visitors. We liked Bay of Island (recommended), it was already very quiet by the time we got there late afternoon. It was pleasantly slow going all day long. We checked-in 22 Banyan St airbnb (recommended) in Warrnambool before sunset, with enough time to make drive/run to see the beach before dark. With all the food from Victoria Market in Melbourne, we prepared dinner at home. It was another good place to stay, high quality and comfortable. We had nice conversations with the owners – fellow travelers.

Twelve Apostoles

Bay of Islands

Crowded or not, all the views from GOR were great – everywhere,  as we moved from point to point for couple of days. The crowds got thinner as we drove further and further west, and very often there were few people on trails beyond couple hundred meters from parking lots. Our favorite places where Kennett River (koalas), Melba Gully and Loch Ard Gorge (with Sherbrook beach).

Day 15

We arrived at MEL at 6:40 and an hour later we had our next rental, Mitsubishi ASX compact SUV from Enterprise, ready to go. Our destination in the city was Fitzroy (via Bell St to avoid tolls) where we stayed with friends for couple of days. We had breakfast and coffee in local cafe, and discussed what to do. We were not prepared for the visit too well, but our hosts had a good plan and instructions for us, plus good info on architecture etc. We just did what they recommended. Couple of hours later we were in St Patrick’s Cathedral, and walked around the city for the rest of the day: first to Ian Potter Centre Federation Square, then across Princes Bridge and along Yarra River to Royal Botanic Garden of Victoria  ☞ rbg Melbourne   (recommended). On the way back we walked by Shrine of Remembrance, visited National Gallery of Victoria,  walked by Federation Square again, St Paul’s Cathedral, along Collins St, then to St Patrick’s  Cathedral, Brunswick St and George St.

Visit to  ☞ National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) at Ian Potter Centre gave us second major experience with indigenous art, after introduction in Sydney: novel and important for us. Australian art and International art galleries were interesting too, but felt familiar. We later spent couple of hours  in NGV at St Kilda Rd, including special exhibit “Terracotta Warriors & Cai Guo-Qiang”, perhaps pointing to our future travel destination.  We had to spend some time wandering around Botanic Gardens, of course.

Day 16

We reached Victoria Market (recommended), our first destination of the day, by tram 11 from Brunswick St to Elizabeth St (conveniently for us re-routed via La Trobe St). We did grocery shopping for the next leg of our trip and we had lunch at food court: marinated seafood from Wood’s deli and laksa from Canton Malay Cuisine, and bread from local bakery. Sounds like fast-food, but it was all very good. Topped-off with Kenyan coffee at Market Lane Coffee and cannoli. We tried three or four different tropical fruits from the market as well, so much flavor.  Piotr was day-dreaming about taking all the seafood to cook at home in Chicago. We spent two hours at the market. After a short walk, we were reading travel books about Melbourne/Australia at ☞ State Library of Victoria, not much time to do it. Some of the many visitors were reading books as well. We walked through ☞ “World of the book” exhibition, not big but interesting. Tram 16 took us to next destination: St Kilda. It was partially sunny, but very windy and quite cold day. We spent the rest of the afternoon there zigzagging between Fitzroy St, St Kilda Pier and Beach, Ackland St. We were hoping to see penguins, but none returned from fishing before we left.  We then picked-up a couple of reds at Ackland Cellars, jumped on tram  96, at the end stop on Ackland St, to Nicholson St. We  walked home a few blocks via Johnstone St.