Wanderung 22

Return to the Land of Oz

November - December 2009

Sunday, December 6th, Otway National Park

Bob:

Our plan for the day was to drive a loop around Otway National Park to see some of the sights that had been recommended to us and get a feel for the area. So after breakfast we drove back on the Great Ocean Road as far as Skenes Creek and then turned due North to drive up to the trailhead for the walk to the Sabine Falls. Along the way the road shifted from a typical paved rural highway to an unmarked gravel road, and we almost missed the trailhead completely because there was no sign on the road at all, just a barely visible sign off to the right in the picnic area.

I felt oddly isolated as we began the walk because I hadn't seen any cars on the road up, there were no other cars in the picnic area at all, and we saw no one on the trail. Furthermore, the trail itself was so covered with debris such as shed eucalyptus bark, fallen tree limbs, and huge fern fronds that it was pretty clear that no one had walked along the path recently and no maintenance crew had been through that trail for maybe a year or so. That sense of complete isolation was both unusual and somewhat spooky.

Monika:

The nice lady at the Information Center in Torquay had given us a National Park map and marked a loop of about 100 km through the National Park with stops at several water falls and a tourist attraction called the Otway Fly. We first drove up a mountain road that went across the coastal range to the inland lake area. We turned off to take our first walk that would take us to the Sabine Falls. After driving the last 2 km on a gravel road, we reached the parking lot, which was completely empty. Obviously this was not one of the high tourist stops. The sign was one of those nice ambiguous signs: "Sabine Falls 3km - 6km, Return 2-5 hours". Well, having that clarified, we set off into what felt like a jungle. The undergrowth was ferns of every size, and above them towered enormously large mountain ash, a type of eucalyptus tree. Some of the trees must have been very, very old because they were huge and tall. It felt like being back in the redwood forest in northern California in the U.S. What is funny is that the bark of the eucalyptus trees peels off, and the path was littered with bark. Sometimes my foot would catch on a piece of bark and drag it along for a while.


 

Bob:

The trail itself was so overgrown and crowded with dense rain forest foliage that it was, for me, like really being in a jungle. I suppose people from Central or South America, southeast Asia, or central Africa will probably laugh at that, but for a midwestern boy used to the wide open prairies of Illinois, being slapped in the face with huge fern fronds, being repeatedly tripped by roots snaking across the path, and being confronted with absolutely HUGE, towering trees everywhere certainly felt like a jungle. Fortunately the flies, mosquitoes, and other insects one would normally expect in such a dense rain forest setting seemed to be taking a holiday, which was a good thing as I had left the insect repellant back in the motel room.

We walked and walked ever downward through the deep, gloomy green of that old growth forest, and I started to wonder exactly how far down we would have to go to get to the falls. The sign at the trailhead had mentioned a 5-hour walk and after charging downhill for several kilometers I started to think about how many steps back UP the trail we would have to go once we turned around. We finally got to the point where we could clearly hear the falls in the valley below us, but it still looked like we had another 500-1000 feet to descend down the side of the mountain to get to the base of the falls. I hated to give up on seeing Sabine Falls, but I was also reluctant to forge ahead without knowing exactly how much further descent was required to get there. So we agreed to turn around and trudged our way back up hill and through all the steps to the parking lot. In the immortal words of Casey at The Bat: "Strike One, the Umpire Said!"

Monika:

It was obvious that the path had not been used very much. There were overhanging branches and some downed tree limbs that hung over the path. Bob and I have our individual preferences, while it is easy for me to duck under and overhanging branch it is quite a bit more difficult to climb over one that has come down. For Bob (who has been called the "tall, boisterous one"), it is of course the opposite as stepping over is easy but ducking under is not.

Our path went down, down, down and more down. We passed the site of an old mill, but without the sign we would never have known it. We then came to a small creek crossing and after going up a bit it was downhill again. After walking for about 45 minutes, we could hear the falls but they were still way down. Bob estimated that we would have to go down at least another 500 feet. Since all this down, meant we would have to come back up and we had a couple other falls on our agenda, we decided to give up on getting to Sabine Falls and just mark this down as a very nice jungle walk.

Bob:

We drove along some very narrow twisty "Tourist Roads" (not for trucks, busses, or campers!) pretty much due West for the better part of an hour to get to the Otway Fly, a suspended walkway in the rain forest. If we hadn't just spent a couple hours walking through the rain forest at Sabine Falls, we would probably have done the Otway Fly, but it just seemed to be an artificial and commercialized version of what we had just experienced, so we decided to forgo that for the time being. "Strike Two, the Umpire Said!" reverberated in my head.

Just after the Otway Fly the pavement stopped and the road once again turned into a narrow gravel lane, but not too far down we found the trailhead for Triplet Falls. The trailhead map indicated that the loop trail to the falls was around 2 kilometers long and even though it had steep descents and ascents we figured we could handle that. So off we went, descending first into a fern grotto and then winding our way around the valley floor. There we found some tree stumps left over from the logging days in the late 1800s, a lot of 100-year old second growth, and curiously also some of the original 300+ year-old trees. A plaque explained how loggers would notch the trunks and stick boards into the notches upon which they would stand and saw down the rest of the tree, and sure enough on two of the old stumps we could clearly see the notches into which they had fitted the boards. That process looked almost suicidally dangerous to me, but so did other jobs in the Good Old Days like climbing the rigging on the old clipper ships to lengthen or shorten sails in a howling gale. We also saw some of the old logging carts used to haul sawn lumber up and out of the valley, a relic of the heyday of logging.

Monika:

Back at the picnic area, there still was no other car around so we forged on. The route that had been suggested now led across the ridge to another part of the National Park. I was somewhat concerned, when there were signs suggesting that the road was not suited for caravans, RVs, or other large vehicles and got even more concerned when I looked at the GPS. Even zoomed in it looked like the road was nothing but curves. But Bob thought he was well rested and up for a challenge. And challenge it was. This road was even more twisty than the Great Ocean Road and it was only a lane and a half wide. It was deep in the National Park, so there were trees and underbrush everywhere, which made it very difficult or impossible to see what was ahead of us. Luckily there were not many cars coming against us, but every one gave us a start as it required spit-second reactions on Bob's part to avoid a head-on collision.

After 20 km or so the road widened, we were out of the National Park and were now informed that we would have to share the road with logging trucks [Note: Bob's least favorite oncoming vehicle due to past experiences!]. Luckily the logging trucks seemed to be taking the Sunday off. So our pace improved. We drove through the little hamlet of Beech Forest. We were on a ridge and I could look out towards the ocean and one side and the lake area on the other. We forged on to the Tourist Attraction "Otway Fly". For $22 you could walk on a steel walk in the tree tops. Somehow, this seemed a contrived amusement and we decided to drive on to the next falls the Triplett Falls.

To get to the falls we had another nice hike through the rain forest. This area had been logged earlier. An old logging truck was left over from the logging area. We also saw an old stump that had handholds carved in it, so the loggers could climb up with a chain saw and cut the tree --- this was obviously before any health and safety regulations. But the cuts in the left over stump looked like a face, that seemed to be saying: "Look, I am still here!"


 


 

Bob:

We continued through a heavy rain forest of fern trees and giant eucalyptus and possibly redwoods to curl around to the base of the lowest set of the three falls that make up Triplet Falls. The lower falls were kind of broad and about 30 feet wide or so, although I'm sure exactly how big they look depends on how much water is running through them on any particular day.

The middle set of falls was more like a cascade down a steep slope of rocks, but the upper falls was again a true waterfall. The upper falls were situated in a beautifully lush valley of ferns and trees and seemed to be more like 80-100 feet tall or so. Very pretty, especially when the sun came out and illuminated the waterfall and surrounding foliage.

Walking back to the car park (American: parking lot) we saw some of the other folks we had met on our walk stopped beside a stream and looking intently to the opposite bank. Of course we stopped too, and low and behold we saw a healthy looking brown snake. The Australian couple stopped with us said that the brown snake was the second deadliest snake, the most deadly snake being a "Taipei" or something like that where you only live a couple of minutes after you have been bitten. She also said that the particular brown snake we were looking at (and who was looking at us with great interest also), was just a baby because it only about 3 or 4 feet long; apparently adults get up to 6 or 7 feet long. The snake started to cross the stream in our direction but slipped, fell into the rapidly flowing water, and was instantly swept downstream. [You do realize, don't you, that it is hard to just stand there and take pictures of something that is trying to kill you?] I was relieved that I didn't have to worry about him being underfoot as we marched back up a bunch of stairs to the car park.

Monika:

Here we received more information on what we were letting us in for. Triplett falls, as the name implies, were three falls, an upper, middle and lower. We walked a 2km loop that brought us first to the lower falls - downhill of course-, then we climbed back up to the middle, and finally to the most impressive upper falls. This was also a nature walk, and there were signs interpreting flora and fauna. When we walked along the gurgling brook that would cascade down the falls, we saw a snake on the other side of the brook sunning itself. We were told it was a young brown snake, the second most venomous snake in Australia (remember in Australia all snakes are poisonous). Well it must have sensed us, and was dumb enough to try to get to us. It reared up and got dunked by cold water. This did not deter it, it tried to go forward again and got swept away by the rather fast running water in the brook. I almost could hear it, as it must have gone over the falls...poor snake. [Note that Monika has sympathy for the "poor snake" while Bob is just glad the bloody thing was washed downstream!]

The rest of the walk seemed to be somewhat anticlimatic. Old trees are just no competition for a deadly, aggressive snake. I was glad when we got back to the car park without another snake encounter.

Bob:

Once back in the car, we backtracked a bit to the East and then turned south on a logging road to get back to the Great Ocean Road and Apollo Bay. But about 1/3 of the way down the mountains we stopped off once more to take the relatively short hike down to Hopetoun Falls. We were getting somewhat tired by that point as we had been walking several hours, albeit with rest breaks in between, so we were glad that the trail was short. That said, the trail was quite steep and consisted mostly of multiple flights of stairs coupled with a metal supporting railing. I found I could kind of slide down that metal railing somewhat like sliding down a banister inside a house, and just skip lightly across the top of the stairs, so going down was no problem at all.

Once down in the valley we had a fairly short, flat walk to get to the bottom of the falls. Hopetoun Falls were really very tall and stately. The large quantity of water frothing over the edge of the falls fell in an even, white sheet down to the pool at the bottom. Beautiful. We paid for our fun by trudging back up those sets of stairs, of course, but we were still glad to have seen them.

Monika:

The road back to civilisation or at least the Great Ocean Road, was 19 km of gravel road. Bob thought it did not look bad. It was wide enough for two cars and not really badly washboarded, so the car didn't slide around too badly. We forged ahead and 5 km down the road stopped for the our last falls of our day, the Hopetoun Falls. It was an easy 1km loop, of course it was down, down, down to the falls. The falls were quite impressive, but I was getting tired of falls and forests and rather hungry. So we went back up, up, up, got in the car and Bob drove the last 15 km down the mountain. He really had done an impressive job all day.

[Translation of Monika's descriptions of Bob's driving: "impressive job" = we can walk and drive the car again the next day. "good job" = we can walk but not drive the car the next day. "fair job" = we can't walk and can't drive the car the next day, but we are still alive!]

Bob:

By that time it was two o'clock and we were quite tired and hungry, so our next priority was lunch. We decided to return to Apollo Bay to have more choice in places for lunch, and that worked well as we found a place specializing in Greek food. I had a really good, authentic souvlaki wrap and Monika a hamburger while we split a Coke and order of chips (that gives 1/2 the damage to each of our low-fat diets!). Thus fortified, we walked down the street to the Visitor Centre. Along the walk were some beautifully carved statues. At the Visitor Centre we checked our email and sent out a "we are here" message to our friends and family, and then started walking the Great Ocean Walk a little bit.

The Great Ocean Walk stretches along the southern coast of Victoria from Apollo Bay to Port Campbell National Park and the 12 Apostles coastal stone formations. Well, we just hiked the first little stretch our of Apollo Bay and were treated with the first of many scenic panoramas that would occur on that walk, especially as it hugs the coastline much more closely than the coastal highway. But by that time our legs were really getting weary so we climbed back in the car to drive up to The Beachcomber Motel and just rested, taking turns reading and using the computer for the rest of the evening.

Monika:

Back in town we stopped at a Greek place were Bob had a Souvlaki and I had a burger and we shared chips and a coke. My burger came with the works, lettuce, tomato, onions, bacon (English bacon: like a slice of ham) and egg. I never had a hamburger with an egg on top, a very interesting taste experience.

After that we went to the local Tourist Information Place to get some more information on the National Park. They did not have much, but they did have 15 minutes of internet access available for $2. We took advantage of that to quickly sign in and check our email as well as letting everyone know we were ok although sad that our trip would soon be over. However, we were very sad to learn from Helen and Jeff in England that their little grandson had not survived an operation. We met and played with the little guy, Raphael, when we visited Helen and Jeff last September and had really had enjoyed seeing him. We grieved that his young, vibrant life had been cut so terribly short.

Before we returned to our room, I wanted to see the beach and Bob wanted to take a look at the Great Ocean Walk which starts here at Apollo Bay and goes along the Ocean for about 100 km. The beach looked wonderful, and there were people on the beach but no one was in the water. It was probably pretty cold. We did see signs for the Great Ocean Walk and followed it a little while. It is rather well marked and afforded us some great views of the ocean. There are primitive campgrounds all along the Great Ocean Walk, but it also touches civilization every now and then where one could hopefully find a soft bed and some real food. Walking it may be fun (if I were 30 years younger).

This pretty much exhausted our energy. We went back to our motel room and curled up with a good book, a friendly computer, and a glass of wine. I downloaded the pictures and we both brought our journals up to date.


 


 


 

Copyright 2010 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Cruise around New Zealand Map of Drive through Victoria Epilog

November 2009
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30
December 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30

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