World Australia Victoria Anglesea

Travels of Jerry & Norma Owen The Owen's Down Under

Koalas Oct 31, 2007

10/30/07

Great Ocean Road - Koalas, Koalas and more Koalas

Today, we caught an excellent sunrise at Anglesea. The pictures are included in this update.

It was cool this morning with the temperature estimated to be in the mid forties. We are without TV and the local weatherman. We departed today at approximately 9:00 AM, seeing spectacular ocean views with many surfers evident along the way. This area is the Australian Surfing capitol. We made several stops at scenic overlooks and at the last light house built in Australia. Fortunately the light house was not open for tours as it was approximately 15 stories high.

After the light house, we rolled on into Lorne and stopped at an information booth and got information on a waterfall to see as well as a place to see Koala's in wild and in their natural habitat.

We drove to Erskine Falls and descended the steps to the bottom of the falls. The falls themselves had a drop of approximately 120 feet and bottom was reached by 306 steps. At the bottom of the falls, you were in a rain forest with large gum trees and tree ferns reaching 12 - 15 feet tall. The rainforest was a surprise as we have been in a semi arid area all day long and it did not change until we reached the area of the falls.

Leaving Lorne, our next stop was a Kennet River where we took a gravel road and almost immediately saw our first Koala. On our prior trip to Australia we only saw Koala's in game preserves. The ones we saw today were not fenced in and were free to roam. We counted 17 sightings in a two mile stretch of road and these were all sighted from the motor home while driving down the road. Seeing the Koala's in the wild made our day.

When we were finished with the Koala's we drove on to Apollo Beach and made an early stop for the day around 2:30 PM. Apollo Beach is a fair sized beach town with all the necessary facilities, so we did a little grocery shopping and ate dinner at a local restaurant.

Today we traveled 110 kilometers or approximately 62 miles.